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《The Joy Luck Club》
Acknowledgments
The author is grateful to her weekly writers group for kindness and criticism during the w九九藏书riting of this book. Special thanks also to Louis DeMattei, Robert Foothorap, Gretc99lib?hen Schields, Amy Hempel, Jennifer Barth, and my family in a and America. And .9９ｌｉb?t>a thousand flowers each to three people whom I have had the joy and the luck to know: my九九藏书; and my teacher, Molly Giles, who told me to start ain and then patiently guided me to the end.
The mothers, and the daughters:
Suyuan Woo—Jing-mei "June" Woo
An-mei Hsu—Rose Hsu Jordan
Lindo Jong—Waverly Jong
Ying-ying St. Clair—Lena St. Clair
eForeward
Born in 1952 in Oakland, California to ese immigrant parents, Amy Tan followed her own pa?99ｌｉｂ?h. Over the objes of her mother, she majored in college in writing and linguistid pursued a career in business writing.
Any Taionship with her mother was very difficult. An opportunity to travel with her mother back to a brought a new perspective.
Amy Tans first fi efforts were short stories. These attracted a, Sandra Di?９9ｌｉb?jkstra, who sold what became The Joy Luck Club to Putnams. When published in 1986 The Joy Luck Club spent 40 weeks on The New York Times Bestseller list. It was nominated for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award and was a recipient of the oh Gold Award and the Bay Area Book Award. The Joy Luck Club ted into a feature film in 1994, for which Amy Tan was a co-swriter with Ron Bass and a co-producer with Babbr>?ss and Wayne Wang.
A stunning literary achievement, The Joy Luck Club explores the tender and tenacious boween four daughters and their mothers. The daughters know one side of their mothers, but they dont know about their earlier neve.r-spoken of lives in a. The mothers want love and obedience from their daughters, but they dont know the gifts that the daughters keep to themselves. Heartwarming and bittersweet, this is a novel for mother, daughters, and those that love them.
Feathers From a Thousand LI Away
The old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in Shanghai for a foolish sum. This bird, boasted the market vendor, was once a duck that stretched its ne hopes of being a goose, and now look!—it is too beautiful to eat.
Then the woman and the swan sailed across an o m>.any thousands of li wide, stretg their necks toward America. On her journey she cooed to the swan: "In America I will have a daughter just like me. But over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husbands belch. Over there nobody will look down on her, because I will make her speak only perfect Ameri English. And over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! She will know my meaning, because I will give her this swan—a creature that became more than what was hoped for."
But when she arr?t>ived in the new try, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swaher for a memory. And then she had to fill out so many forms she fot why she had e and what sh藏书网e had left behind.
Now the woman was old. And she had a daughter who grew up speaking only English and swallowing more Coca-Cola than sorrow. For a long time now the woman had wao give her daughter the single swaher and tell her, "This?e laughed, we played games, lost and woold the best stories. And each week, we could hope to be lucky. That hope was our only joy. And thats how we came to call our little parties Joy Luck."
My mother used to end the story on a happy note, bragging about her skill at the game. "I won many times and was so lucky the others teased that I had learhe trick of a clever thief," she said. "I won tens of thousands of yuan. But I wasnt rio. By then paper money had bee worthless. Even toilet paper was worth more. And that made us laugh harder, to think a thousand-yuan note wasnt even good enough to rub on our bottoms."
I hought my mothers Kweilin story was anything but a ese fairy tale. The endings always ged. Sometimes she said she used that worthless thousand-yuan o buy a half-cup of rice. She turhat rito a pot of pe. She traded that gruel for two feet from a pig. Those two feet became six eggs, those eggs six chis. The story always grew and grew.
And then one evening, after I had begged her to buy me a transistor radio, after she refused and I had sulked in silence for an hour, she said, "Why do you think you are missing something you never had?" And theold me a pletely different ending to the story.
"An army officer came to my house early one m," she said, "and told me to go quickly to my husband in gking. And I knew he was tellio run away from Kweilin. I knew what happeo officers and their families when the Japanese arrived. How could I go? There were no trains leaving Kweilin. My friend from Nanking, she was so good to me. She bribed a man to steal a wheelbarrow used to haul coal. She promised to warn our other friends.
"I packed my things and my two babies into this wheelbarrow and began pushing to gking four days before the Japanese marched into Kweilin. On the road I heard news of the slaughter from people running past me. It was terrible. Up to the last day, the Kuomintang insisted that Kweilin was safe, protected by the ese army. But later that day, the streets of Kweilin were strewn with neers rep great Kuomintang victories, and on top of these papers, like fresh fish from a butcher, lay rows of people—men, women, and children who had never lost hope, but had lost their lives instead. When I heard this news, I walked faster and faster, asking myself at each step, Were they foolish? Were they brave?
"I pushed toward gking, until my wheel broke. I abandoned my beautiful mah jong table of hong mu. By then I didnt have enough feeli in my body to cry. I tied scarves into slings and put a baby on each side of my shoulder. I carried a bag in each hand, oh clothes, the other with food. I carried these things until deep grooves grew in my hands. And I finally dropped one bag after the other when my hands began to bleed and became too slippery to hold onto anything.
"Along the way, I saw others had dohe same, gradually given up hope. It was like a pathway inlaid with treasures that grew in value along the way. Bolts of fine fabrid books. Paintings of aors and carpeools. Until one could see cages of dugs now quiet with thirst and, later still, silver urns lying in the road, where people had been too tired to carry them for any kind of future hope. By the time I arrived in gking I had lost everything except for three fancy silk dresses which I wore one on top of the other."
"What do you mean by everything?" I gasped at the end. I was stuo realize the story had been true all along. "What happeo the babies?"
She didnt even pause to think. She simply said in a way that made it clear there was no more to the story: "Your father is not my first husband. You are not those babies."
When I arrive at the Hsus house, where the Joy Luck Club is meeting tonight, the first person I see is my father. "There she is! Never on time!" he announces. And its true. Everybodys already here, seven family friends in their sixties aies. They look up and laugh at me, always tardy, a child still at thirty-six.
Im shaking, trying to hold something ihe last time I saw them, at the funeral, I had broken down and cried big gulping sobs. They must wonder now how someone like me take my mothers place. A friend oold me that my mother and I were alike, that we had the same wispy haures, the same girlish laugh and sideways look. When I shyly told my mother this, she seemed insulted and said, "You dont even know little pert of me! How you be me?" And shes right. How I be my mother at Joy Luck?
"Auntie, Uncle," I say repeatedly, nodding to each person there. I have always called these old family friends Auntie and Uncle. And then I walk over and stao my father.
Hes looking at the Jongs pictures from their ret a trip. "Look at that," he says politely, pointing to a photo of the Jongs troup standing on wide slab steps. There is nothing in this picture that shows it was taken in a rather than San Francisco, or any other city for that matter. But my father doeso be looking at the picture anyway. Its as though everythihe same to him, nothing stands out. He has always been politely indifferent. But whats the ese word that means indifferent because you t see any differehats how troubled I think he is by my mothers death.
"Will you look at that," he says, pointing to another nondescript picture.
The Hsus house feels heavy with greasy odors. Too many ese meals cooked in a too small kit, too many once fragrant smells pressed onto a thin layer of invisible grease. I remember how my mother used to go into other peoples houses aaurants and wrinkle her hen whisper very loudly: "I see ahe stiess with my nose."
I have not been to the Hsus house in many years, but the living room is exactly the same as I remember it. When Auntie An-mei and Uncle Gee moved to the Su district from atowy-five years ago, they bought new furniture. Its all there, still looking mostly new under yellowed plastic. The same turquoise couch shaped in a semicircle of nubby tweed. The ial end tables made out of heavy maple. A lamp of fake cracked porcelain. Only the scroll-length dar, free from the Bank of ton, ges every year.
I remember this stuff, because when we were children, Auntie An-mei did us touy of her new furniture except through the clear plastic cs. On Joy Luights, my parents brought me to the Hsus. Since I was the guest, I had to take care of all the younger children, so many children it seemed as if there were always one baby who was g from having bumped its head on a table leg.
"You are responsible," said my mother, which meant I was in trouble if anything illed, burned, lost, broken, or dirty. I was responsible, no matter who did it. She and Auntie An-mei were dressed up in funny ese dresses with stiff stand-up collars and blooming branches of embroidered silk sewheir breasts. These clothes were too fancy for real ese people, I thought, and toe for Ameri parties. In those days, before my mother told me her Kweilin story, I imagined Joy Luck was a shameful ese , like the secret gathering of the Ku Klux Klan or the tom-tom dances of TV Indians preparing for war.
But tonight, theres no mystery. The Joy Luck aunties are all wearing slacks, bright print blouses, and different versions of sturdy walking shoes. We are all seated around the dining room table under a lamp that looks like a Spanish delabra. Uncle Gee puts on his bifocals and starts the meeting by reading the minutes:
"Our capital at is $24,825, or about $6,206 a couple, $3,103 per person. We sold Subaru for a loss at six and three-quarters. We bought a hundred shares of Smith Iional at seven. Our thanks to Lindo and Tin Jong for the goodies. The red bean soup was especially delicious. The March meeting had to be celed until further notice. We were sorry to have to bid a fond farewell to our dear friend Suyuan aended our sympathy to the ing Woo family. Respectfully submitted, Gee Hsu, president aary."
Thats it. I keep thinking the others will start talking about my mother, the wonderful friendship they shared, and why I am here in her spirit, to be the fourth er and carry on the idea my mother came up with on a hot day in Kweilin.
But everybody just nods to approve the minutes. Even my fathers head bobs up and down routinely. And it seems to me my mothers life has been shelved for new business.
Auntie An-mei heaves herself up from the table and moves slowly to the kit to prepare the food. And Auntie Lin, my mothers best friend, moves to the turquoise sofa, crosses her arms, and watches the men still seated at the table. Auntie Ying, who seems to shrink even more every time I see her, reaches into her knitting bag and pulls out the start of a tiny blue sweater.
The Joy Lucles begin to talk about stocks they are ied in buying. Uncle Jack, who is Auntie Yings younger brother, is very keen on a pany that mines gold in ada.
"Its a great hedge on inflation," he says with authority. He speaks the best English, almost atless. I think my mothers English was the worst, but she always thought her ese was the best. She spoke Mandarin slightly blurred with a Shanghai dialect.
"Werent we going to play mah jong tonight?" I whisper loudly to Auntie Ying, whos slightly deaf.
"Later," she says, "after midnight."
"Ladies, are you at this meeting or not?" says Uncle Gee. After everybody votes unanimously for the ada gold stock, I go into the kit to ask Auntie An-mei why the Joy Luck Club started iing in stocks.
"We used to play mah jong, wiake all. But the same people were always winning, the same people always losing," she says. She is stuffing wonton, one chopstick jab of gingery meat dabbed onto a thin skin and then a single fluid turn with her hand that seals the skin into the shape of a tiny nurses cap. "You t have luck when someone else has skill. So long time ago, we decided to i iock market. Theres no skill in that. Even your mreed."
Auntie Aakes t of the tray in front of her. Shes already made five rows of eight wonton each. "Forty wonto people, ten each, five row more," she says aloud to herself, and then tiuffing. "We got smart. Now we all win and lose equally. We have stock market luck. And lay mah jong for fun, just for a few dollars, wiake all. Losers take home leftovers! So everyone have some joy. Smart-hanh?"
I watch Auntie An-mei make more wonton. She has quick, expert fingers. She doesnt have to think about what she is doing. Thats what my mother used to plain about, that Auntie An-mei hought about what she was doing.
"Shes not stupid," said my mother on one occasion, "but she has no spine. Last week, I had a good idea for her. I said to her, Lets go to the sulate and ask for papers for your brother. And she almost wao drop her things and ght then. But later she talked to someone. Who knows who? And that person told her she get her brother in bad trouble in a. That person said FBI will put her on a list and give her trouble in the U.S. the rest of her life. That person said, You ask for a house loan and they say no loan, because your brother is a unist. I said, You already have a house! But still she was scared.
"Aunti An-mei runs this way and that," said my mother, "and she doesnt know why."
As I watch Auntie An-mei, I see a short bent woman in her seventies, with a heavy bosom and thin, shapeless legs. She has the flattened soft fiips of an old woman. I wonder what Auntie An-mei did to inspire a lifelong stream of criticism from my mother. Then again, it seemed my mother was always displeased with all her friends, with me, and even with my father. Something was always missing. Something always needed improving. Something was not in balahis one or that had too much of one element, not enough of another.
The elements were from my mothers own version anic chemistry. Each person is made of five elements, she told me.
Too much fire and you had a bad temper. That was like my father, whom my mother always criticized for his cigarette habit and who always shouted back that she should keep her thoughts to herself. I think he now feels guilty that he did my mother speak her mind.
Too little wood and you bent too quickly to listen to other peoples ideas, uo stand on your own. This was like my Auntie An-mei.
Too much water and you flowed in too many dires, like myself, for having started half a degree in biology, then half a degree in art, and then finishiher when I went off to work for a small ad agency as a secretary, later being a copywriter.
I used to dismiss her criticisms as just more of her ese superstitions, beliefs that vely fit the circumstances. In my twenties, while taking Introdu to Psychology, I tried to tell her why she shouldnt criticize so much, why it dido a healthy learning enviro.
"Theres a school of thought," I said, "that parents shouldnt criticize children. They should ence instead. You know, people rise to other peoples expectations. And when you criticize, it just means youre expeg failure."
"Thats the trouble," my mother said. "You never rise. Lazy to get up. Lazy to rise to expectations."
"Time to eat," Auntie An-mei happily announces, bringing out a steaming pot of the wonton she was just ing. There are piles of food oable, served buffet style, just like at the Kweilis. My father is digging into the ein, which still sits in an oversize aluminum pan surrounded by little plastic packets of soy sauce. Auntie An-mei must have bought this o Street. The wonton soup smells wonderful with delicate sprigs of tro floating on top. Im drawn first to a large platter of chaswei, sweet barbecued pork cut into -sized slices, and then to a whole assortment of what Ive always called finger goodies—thin-skinned pastries filled with chopped pork, beef, shrimp, and unknown stuffings that my mother used to describe as "nutritious things."
Eating is not a gracious event here. Its as though everybody had been starving. They push large forkfuls into their mouths, jab at more pieces of pork, ht after the other. They are not like the ladies of Kweilin, who I always imagined savored their food with a certaiached delicacy.
And then, almost as quickly as they started, the me up and leave the table. As if ohe women peck at last morsels and then carry plates and bowls to the kit and dump them in the sink. The women take turns washing their hands, scrubbing them vigorously. Who started this ritual? I too put my plate in the sink and wash my hands. The womealking about the Jongs a trip, then they move toward a room in the back of the apartment. We pass another room, what used to be the bedroom shared by the four Hsu sons. The bunk beds with their scuffed, splintery ladders are still there. The Joy Lucles are already seated at the card table. Uncle Gee is dealing out cards, fast, as though he learhis teique in a o. My father is passing out Pall Mall cigarettes, with one already dangling from his lips.
And the to the room in the back, which was once shared by the three Hsu girls. We were all childhood friends. And now theyve all grown and married and Im here to play in their room again. Except for the smell of camphor, it feels the same—as if Rose, Ruth, and Janice might soon walk in with their hair rolled up in big e-juice s and plop down on their identiarrow beds. The white ille bedspreads are so worn they are almost translut. Rose and I used to pluck the nubs out while talking about our boy problems. Everything is the same, except now a mahogany-colored mah jong table sits in the ter. Ao it is a floor lamp, a long black pole with three oval spotlights attached like the broad leaves of a rubber plant.
Nobody says to me, "Sit here, this is where your mother used to sit." But I tell even before everyos down. The chair closest to the door has aio it. But the feeling doesnt really have to do with the chair. Its her pla the table. Without having aell me, I know her er oable was the East.
The East is where things begin, my mother oold me, the dire from which the sun rises, where the wind es from.
Auntie An-mei, who is sitting on my left, spills the tiles onto the greeabletop and then says to me, "Noash tiles." We swirl them with our hands in a circular motion. They make a cool swishing sound as they bump into one another.
"Do you win like your mother?" asks Auntie Lin across from me. She is not smiling.
"I only played a little in college with some Jewish friends."
"Annh! Jewish mah jong," she says in disgusted tones. "Not the same thing." This is what my mother used to say, although she could never explaily why.
"Maybe I shouldnt play tonight. Ill just watch," I offer.
Auntie Lin looks exasperated, as though I were a simple child: "How we play with just three people? Like a table with three legs, no balance. When Auntie Yings husband died, she asked her brother to join. Your father asked you. So its decided."
"Whats the differeween Jewish and ese mah jong?" I once asked my mother. I couldnt tell by her answer if the games were different or just her attitude toward ese and Jewish people.
"Entirely different kind of playing," she said in her English explanation voice. "Jewish mah jong, they watly for their own tile, play only with their eyes."
Then she switched to ese: "ese mah jong, you must play using your head, very tricky. You must watch what everybody else throws away ahat in your head as well. And if nobody plays well, then the game bees like Jewish mah jong. Why play? Theres ny. Youre just watg people make mistakes."
These kinds of explanations made me feel my mother and I spoke two different languages, which we did. I talked to her in English, she answered ba ese.
"So whats the differeween ese and Jewish mah jong?" I ask Auntie Lin.
"Aii-ya," she exclaims in a mock scolding voice. "Your mother did not teach you anything?"
Auntie Ying pats my hand. "You a smart girl. You watch us, do the same. Help us stack the tiles and make four walls."
I follow Auntie Ying, but mostly I watch Auntie Lin. She is the fastest, which means I almost keep up with the others by watg what she does first. Auntie Ying throws the did Im told that Auntie Lin has bee the East wind. Ive bee the North wind, the last hand to play. Auntie Ying is the South and Auntie An-mei is the West. And theart taking tiles, throwing the dice, ting ba the wall to the right number of spots where our chosen tiles lie. I rearrange my tiles, sequences of bamboo and balls, doubles of colored iles, odd tiles that do not fit anywhere.
"Your mother was the best, like a pro," says Auntie An-mei while slowly s her tiles, sidering each piece carefully.
Now we begin to play, looking at our hands, casting tiles, pig up others at an easy, fortable pace. The Joy Luck aunties begin to make small talk, not really listening to each other. They speak in their special language, half in broken English, half in their own ese dialect. Auntie Yiions she bought yarn at half price, somewhere out in the avenues. Auntie An-mei brags about a sweater she made for her daughter Ruths new baby. "She thought it was store-bought," she says proudly.
Auntie Lin explains how mad she got at a store clerk who refused to let her return a skirt with a broken zipper. "I was chiszle," she says, still fuming, "mad to death."
"But Lindo, you are still with us. You didnt die," teases Auntie Ying, and then as she laughs Auntie Lin says Pung! and Mah jong! and then spreads her tiles out, laughing back at Auntie Ying while ting up her points. We start washing tiles again and it grows quiet. Im getting bored and sleepy.
"Oh, I have a story," says Auntie Ying loudly, startling everybody. Auntie Ying has always been the weird auntie, someone lost in her own world. My mother used to say, "Auntie Ying is not hard of hearing. She is hard of listening."
"Police arrested Mrs. Emersons son last weekend," Auntie Ying says in a way that sounds as if she were proud to be the first with this big news. "Mrs. told me at church. Too many TV set found in his car."
Auntie Lin quickly says, "Aii-ya, Mrs. Emerson good lady," meaning Mrs. Emerson didnt deserve such a terrible son. But now I see this is also said for the be of Auntie An-mei, whose own you son was arrested two years ago for selling stolen car stereos. Auntie An-mei is rubbiile carefully before discarding it. She looks pained.
"Everybody has TVs in a now," says Auntie Lin, ging the subject. "Our family there all has TV sets—not just blad-white, but color ae! They have everything. So when we asked them what we should buy them, they said nothing, it was enough that we would e to visit them. But we bought them different things anyway, Vd Sony Walkman for the kids. They said, No, dont give it to us, but I think they liked it."
Poor Auntie An-mei rubs her tiles ever harder. I remember my mother telling me about the Hsus trip to a three years ago. Auntie An-mei had saved two thousand dollars, all to spend on her brothers family. She had shown my mother the insides of her heavy suitcases. One was crammed with Sees Nuts & Chews, M & Ms, dy-coated cashews, instant hot chocolate with miniature marshmallows. My mother told me the taihe most ridiculous clothes, all new: bright California-style beachwear, baseball caps, cotton pants with elastic waists, bomber jackets, Stanford sweatshirts, crew socks.
My mother had told her, "Who wants those useless things? They just want money." But Auntie An-mei said her brother was so poor and they were so rich by parison. So she ignored my mothers advid took the heavy bags and their two thousand dollars to a. And when their a tour finally arrived in Hangzhou, the whole family from Ningbo was there to meet them. It wasnt just Auntie An-meis little brother, but also his wifes stepbrothers and stepsisters, and a distant cousin, and that cousins husband and that husbands uhey had all brought their mothers-in-law and children, and even their village friends who were not lucky enough to have overseas ese relatives to show off.
As my mother told it, "Auntie An-mei had cried before she left for a, thinking she would make her brother very rid happy by unist standards. But whe home, she cried to me that everyone had a palm out and she was the only one who left with ay hand."
My mother firmed her suspis. Nobody wahe sweatshirts, those useless clothes. The M & Ms were thrown in the air, gone. And when the suitcases were emptied, the relatives asked what else the Hsus had brought.
Auntie An-mei and Uncle Gee were shaken down, not just for two thousand dollars worth of TVs and refrigerators but also for a nights lodging for twenty-six people in the Overlooking the Lake Hotel, for three baables at a restaurant that catered to rich fners, for three special gifts for each relative, and finally, for a loan of five thousand yuan in fn exge to a cousins so-called uncle who wao buy a motorcycle but who later disappeared food along with t..he money. Wherain pulled out of Hangzhou the day, the Hsus found themselves depleted of some housand dollars worth of goodwill. Months later, after an inspiring Christmastime service at the First ese Baptist Church, Auntie Aried to recoup her loss by saying it truly was more blessed to give than to receive, and my mreed, her longtime friend had blessings for at least several lifetimes.
Listening now to Auntie Lin bragging about the virtues of her family in a, I realize that Auntie Lin is oblivious to Auntie An-meis pain. Is Auntie Lin being mean, or is it that my mother old anybody but me the shameful story of Auntie An-meis greedy family?
"So, Jing-mei, you go to school now?" says Auntie Lin.
"Her name is Juhey all go by their Ameriames," says Auntie Ying.
"Thats okay," I say, and I really mean it. In fact, its even being fashionable for Ameri-born ese to use their ese names.
"Im not in school anymore, though," I say. "That was more than ten years ago."
Auntie Lins eyebrows arch. "Maybe Im thinking of someone else daughter," she says, but I knht away shes lying. I know my mother probably told her I was going back to school to finish my degree, because somewhere back, maybe just six months ago, we were again having this argument about my being a failure, a "college drop-off," about my going back to finish.
Once again I had told my mother what she wao hear: "Youre right. Ill look into it."
I had always assumed we had an unspoken uanding about these things: that she didnt really mean I was a failure, and I really meant I would try to respect her opinions more. But listening to Auntie Lin tonight reminds me once again: My mother and I never really uood one another. We translated each others meanings and I seemed to hear less than what was said, while my mother heard more. No doubt she told Auntie Lin I was going back to school to get a doctorate.
Auntie Lin and my mother were both best friends and aremies who spent a lifetime paring their children. I was one month older than Waverly Jong, Auntie Lins prized daughter. From the time we were babies, our mothers pared the creases in our belly buttons, hoely our earlobes were, how fast we healed when we scraped our knees, how thid dark our hair, how many shoes we wore out in one year, and later, how smart Waverly laying chess, how many trophies she had won last month, how many neers had printed her name, how many cities she had visited.
I know my mother resented listening to Auntie Lin talk about Waverly when she had nothing to e back with. At first my mother tried to cultivate some hidden genius in me. She did housework for an old retired piano teacher down the hall who gave me lessons and free use of a piano to practi in exge. When I failed to bee a cert pianist, or even an apanist for the church youth choir, she finally explaihat I was late-blooming, like Einstein, who everyohought was retarded until he discovered a bomb.
Now it is Auntie Ying who wins this hand of mah jong, so we t points and begin again.
"Did you know Lena move to Woodside?" asks Auntie Ying with obvious pride, looking down at the tiles, talking to no one in particular. She quickly erases her smile and tries for some modesty. "Of course, its not best house in neighborhood, not million-dollar house, not yet. But its good iment. Better than payi. Better than somebody putting you uheir thumb to rub you out."
So now I know Auntie Yings daughter, Lena, told her about my beied from my apartment on lower Russian Hill. Even though Lena and I are still friends, we have grown naturally cautious about telling each other too much. Still, what little we say to one another often es ba anuise. Its the same old game, everybody talking in circles.
"Its getting late," I say after we finish the round. I start to stand up, but Auntie Lin pushes me back down into the chair.
"Stay, stay. We talk awhile, get to know you again," she says. "Been a long time."
I know this is a polite gesture on the Joy Luck aunties part—a protest when actually they are just as eager to see me go as I am to leave. "No, I really must go now, thank you, thank you," I say, glad I remembered how the pretense goes.
"But you must stay! We have something important to tell you, from your mother," Auntie Ying blurts out ioo-loud voice. The others look unfortable, as if this were not how they inteo break some sort of bad o me.
I sit down. Auntie An-mei leaves the room quickly aurns with a bowl of peanuts, then quietly shuts the door. Everybody is quiet, as if nobody knew where to begin.
It is Auntie Ying who finally speaks. "I think your mother die with an important thought on her mind," she says in halting English. And then she begins to speak in ese, calmly, softly.
"Your mother was a very strong woman, a good mother. She loved you very much, more than her own life. And thats why you uand why a mother like this could never fet her other daughters. She khey were alive, and before she died she wao find her daughters in a."
The babies in Kweilin, I think. I was not those babies. The babies in a sling on her shoulder. Her other daughters. And now I feel as if I were in Kweilin amidst the bombing and I see these babies lying on the side of the road, their red thumbs popped out of their mouths, screaming to be reclaimed. Somebody took them away. Theyre safe. And now my mothers left me forever, gone back to a to get these babies. I barely hear Auntie Yings voice.
"She had searched for years, writteers bad forth," says Auntie Ying. "And last year she got an address. She was going to tell your father soon. Aii-ya, what a shame. A lifetime of waiting."
Auntie An-mei interrupts with aed voice: "So your aunties and I, we wrote to this address," she says. "We say that a certain party, your mother, want to meet another certain party. And this party write back to us. They are your sisters, Jing-mei."
My sisters, I repeat to myself, saying these two words together for the first time.
Auntie An-mei is holding a sheet of paper as thin as ing tissue. In perfectly straight vertical rows I see ese characters written in blue fountain-pen ink. A word is smudged. A tear? I take the letter with shaking hands, marveling at how smart my sisters must be to be able to read and write ese.
The aunties are all smiling at me, as though I had been a dying person who has now miraculously recovered. Auntie Ying is handing me another envelope. Inside is a check made out to June Woo for $1,200. I t believe it.
"My sisters are sending me money?" I ask.
"No, no," says Auntie Lin with her mock exasperated voice. "Every year we save our mah jong winnings f ba fancy restaurant. Most times your mother win, so most is her money. We add just a little, so you go Hong Kong, take a train to Shanghai, see your sisters. Besides, we all getting too rich, too fat." she pats her stomach for proof.
"See my sisters," I say numbly. I am awed by this prospect, trying to imagine what I would see. And I am embarrassed by the end-of-the-year-ba lie my aunties have told to mask their generosity. I am g now, sobbing and laughing at the same time, seeing but not uanding this loyalty to my mother.
"You must see your sisters ahem about your mothers death," says Auntie Ying. "But most important, you must tell them about her life. The mother they did not know, they must now know."
"See my sisters, tell them about my mother," I say, nodding. "What will I say? What I tell them about my mother? I dont know anything. She was my mother."
The aunties are looking at me as if I had bee crazy right before their eyes.
"Not know your own mother?" cries Auntie An-mei with disbelief. "How you say? Your mother is in your bones!"
"Tell them stories of your family here. How she became success," offers Auntie Lin.
"Tell them stories she told you, lessons she taught, what you know about her mind that has bee your mind," says Auntie Ying. "You mother very smart lady."
I hear more choruses of "Tell them, tell them" as each Auntie frantically tries to think what should be passed on.
"Her kindness."
"Her smartness."
"Her dutiful nature to family."
"Her hopes, things that matter to her."
"The excellent dishes she cooked."
"Imagine, a daughter not knowing her own mother!"
And then it occurs to me. They are frightened. Ihey see their own daughters, just as ignorant, just as unmindful of all the truths and hopes they have brought to America. They see daughters who grow impatient when their mothers talk in ese, who think they are stupid when they explain things in fractured English. They see that joy and luck do not mean the same to their daughters, that to these closed Ameri-born minds "joy luck" is not a word, it does . They see daughters who will bear grandchildren born without any eg hope passed from geion to geion.
"I will tell them everything," I say simply, and the aunties look at me with doubtful faces.
"I will remember everything about her ahem," I say more firmly. And gradually, one by ohey smile and pat my hand. They still look troubled, as if something were out of balance. But they also look hopeful that what I say will bee true. What more they ask? What more I promise?
They go back to eating their soft boiled peanuts, saying stories among themselves. They are young girls again, dreaming of good times in the past and good times yet to e. A brother from Ningbo who makes his sister cry with joy wheurns housand dollars plus i. A you son whose stereo and TV repair business is so good he sends leftovers to a. A daughter whose babies are able to swim like fish in a fancy pool in Woodside. Such good stories. The best. They are the lucky ones.
And I am sitting at my mothers place at the mah jong table, on the East, where things begin.
Scar
An-Mei Hsu
When I was a young girl in a, my grandmother told me my mother was a ghost. This did not mean my mother was dead. In those days, a ghost was anything we were forbidden to talk about. So I knew Popo wanted me tet my mother on purpose, and this is how I came to remember nothing of her. The life that I knew began in the large house in Ningpo with the cold hallways and tall stairs. This was my uncle and aunties family house, where I lived with Popo and my little brother.
But I often heard stories of a ghost who tried to take children away, especially strong-willed little girls who were disobedient. Many times Popo said aloud to all who could hear that my brother and I had fallen out of the bowels of a stupid goose, two eggs that nobody wanted, not even good enough to crack over rice pe. She said this so that the ghosts would not steal us away. So you see, to Popo we were also very precious.
All my life, Popo scared me. I became even more scared when she grew sick. This was in 1923, when I was nine years old. Popo had swollen up like an overripe squash, so full her flesh had gone soft and rotten with a bad smell. She would call me into her room with the terrible stink and tell me stories. "An-mei," she said, calling me by my school name. "Listen carefully." She told me stories I could not uand.
One was about a greedy girl whose belly grew fatter and fatter. This girl poisoned herself after refusing to say whose child she carried. When the monks cut open her body, they found inside a large white winter melon.
"If yreedy, what is inside you is what makes you always hungry," said Popo.
Aime, Popo told me about a girl who refused to listen to her elders. One day this bad girl shook her head so vigorously to refuse her aunties simple request that a little white ball fell from her ear and out poured all her brains, as clear as chi broth.
"Your own thoughts are so busy swimming ihat everything else gets pushed out," Popo told me.
Right before Popo became so sick she could no longer speak, she pulled me close and talked to me about my mother. "Never say her name," she warned. "To say her name is to spit on your fathers grave."
The only father I knew was a big painting that hung in the main hall. He was a large, unsmiling man, unhappy to be so still on the wall. His restless eyes followed me around the house. Even from my room at the end of the hall, I could see my fathers watg eyes. Popo said he watched me for any signs of disrespect. So sometimes, when I had thrown pebbles at other children at school, or had lost a book through carelessness, I would quickly walk by my father with a know-nothing look and hide in a er of my room where he could not see my face.
I felt our house was so unhappy, but my little brother did not seem to think so. He rode his bicycle through the courtyard, chasing chis and other children, laughing over whies shrieked the loudest. Ihe quiet house, he jumped up and down on Uncle and Aunties best feather sofas when they were away visiting village friends.
But even my brothers happiness went away. O summer day when Popo was already very sick, we stood outside watg a village funeral procession marg by our courtyard. Just as it passed ate, the heavy framed picture of the dead man toppled from its stand ao the dusty ground. An old lady screamed and fainted. My brother laughed and Auntie slapped him.
My auntie, who had a very bad temper with children, told him he had no shou, no respect for aors or family, just like our mother. Auntie had a tongue like hungry scissors eating silk cloth. So when my brave her a sour look, Auntie said our mother was so thoughtless she had fled north in a big hurry, without taking the dowry furniture from her marriage to my father, without bringien pairs of silver chopsticks, without paying respey fathers grave and those of our aors. When my brother accused Auntie htening our mother away, Auntie shouted that our mother had married a man named Wu Tsing who already had a wife, two es, and other bad children.
And when my brother shouted that Auntie was a talking chi without a head, she pushed my brainst the gate and spat on ..is face.
"You throw strong words at me, but you are nothing," Auntie said. "You are the son of a mother who has so little respect she has bee ni, a traitor to our aors. She is so beh others that even the devil must look down to see her."
That is when I began to uand the stories Popo taught me, the lessons I had to learn for my mother. "When you lose your face, An-mei," Popo often said, "it is like dropping your necklace down a well. The only way you get it back is to fall in after it."
Now I could imagine my mother, a thoughtless woman who laughed and shook her head, who dipped her chopsticks many times to eat another piece of sweet fruit, happy to be free of Popo, her unhappy husband on the wall, awo disobedient children. I felt unlucky that she was my mother and unlucky that she had left us. These were the thoughts I had while hiding in the er of my room where my father could not watch me.
I was sitting at the top of the stairs when she arrived. I k was my mother even though I had seen her in all my memory. She stood just ihe doorway so that her face became a dark shadow. She was much taller than my auntie, almost as tall as my uncle. She looked straoo, like the missionary ladies at our school who were i and bossy ioo-tall shoes, fn clothes, and short hair.
My auntie quickly looked away and did not call her by name or offer her tea. An old servant hurried away with a displeased look. I tried to keep very still, but my heart felt like crickets scratg to get out of a cage. My mother must have heard, because she looked up. And when she did, I saw my own face looking back at me. Eyes that stayed wide open and saw too much.
In Popos room my auntie protested, "Too late, too late," as my mother approached the bed. But this did not stop my mother.
"e back, stay here," murmured my mother to Popo. "Nuyer is here. Your daughter is back." Popos eyes were open, but now her mind ran in many different dires, not staying long enough to see anything. If Popos mind had been clear she would have raised her two arms and flung my mother out of the room.
I watched my mother, seeing her for the first time, this pretty woman with her white skin and oval faot too round like Aunties or sharp like Popos. I saw that she had a long white neck, just like the goose that had laid me. That she seemed to float bad forth like a ghost, dipping cool cloths to lay on Popos bloated face. As she peered into Popos eyes, she clucked soft worried sounds. I watched her carefully, yet it was her voice that fused me, a familiar sound from a fotten dream.
When I returo my room later that afternoon, she was there, standing tall. And because I remember Popo told me not to speak her name, I stood there, mute. She took my hand and led me to the settee. And then she also sat down as though we had dohis every day.
My man to loosen my braids and brush my hair with long sweeping strokes.
"An-mei, you have been a good daughter?" she asked, smiling a secret look.
I looked at her with my know-nothing face, but inside I was trembling. I was the girl whose belly held a colorless winter melon.
"An-mei, you know who I am," she said with a small scold in her voice. This time I did not look for fear my head would burst and my brains would dribble out of my ears.
She stopped brushing. And then I could feel her long smooth fingers rubbing and searg under my , finding the spot that was my smooth-neck scar. As she rubbed this spot, I became very still. It was as though she were rubbing the memory bato my skin. And then her hand dropped and she began to cry, ing her hands around her own neck. She cried with a wailing voice that was so sad. And then I remembered the dream with my mothers voice.
I was four years old. My was just above the diable, and I could see my baby brother sitting on Popos lap, g with an angry face. I could hear voices praising a steaming dark soup brought to the table, voices murmuring politely, "g! g!"—Please, eat!
And thealking stopped. My uncle rose from his chair. Everyouro look at the door, where a tall woman stood. I was the only one who spoke.
"Ma," I had cried, rushing off my chair, but my auntie slapped my fad pushed me back down. Now everyone was standing up and shouting, and I heard my mothers voice g, "An-mei! An-mei!" Above this noise, Popos shrill voice spoke.
"Who is this ghost? Not an honored widow. Just a hree e. If you take your daughter, she will bee like you. No faever able to lift up her head."
Still my mother shouted for me to e. I remember her voice so clearly now. An-mei! An-mei! I could see my mothers face across the table. Between us stood the soup pot on its heavy ey-pot stand—rog slowly, bad forth. And then with one shout this dark boiling soup spilled forward and fell all over my neck. It was as though everyones anger were p all over me.
This was the kind of pain so terrible that a little child should never remember it. But it is still in my skins memory. I cried out loud only a little, because soon my flesh began to burst inside and out and y breathing air.
I could not speak because of this terrible choking feeling. I could not see because of all the tears that poured out to wash away the pain. But I could hear my mothers g voice. Popo and Auntie were shouting. And then my mothers voice went away.
Later that night Popos voice came to me.
"An-mei, listen carefully." Her voice had the same scolding tone she used when I ran up and down the hallway. "An-mei, we have made your dying clothes and shoes for you. They are all white cotton."
I listened, scared.
"An-mei," she murmured, now mently. "Your dying clothes are very plain. They are not fancy, because you are still a child. If you die, you will have a short life and you will still owe your family a debt. Your funeral will be very small. Our m time for you will be very short."
And then Popo said something that was worse than the burning on my neck.
"Even your mother has used up her tears a. If you do not get well soon, she will fet you."
Popo was very smart. I came hurrying back from the other world to find my mother.
Every night I cried so that both my eyes and my neck burned. o my bed sat Popo. She would pour cool water over my neck from the hollowed cup of a large grapefruit. She would pour and pour until my breathing became soft and I could fall asleep. In the m, Popo would use her sharp fingernails like tweezers and peel off the dead membranes.
In two years time, my scar became pale and shiny and I had no memory of my mother. That is the way it is with a wound. The wound begins to close in on itself, to protect what is hurting so much. And o is closed, you no longer see what is underh, what started the pain.
I worshipped this mother from my dream. But the woman standing by Popos bed was not the mother of my memory. Yet I came to love this mother as well. Not because she came to me and begged me tive her. She did not. She did not o explain that Popo chased her out of the house when I was dying. This I knew. She did not o tell me she married Wu Tsing to exge one unhappiness for another. I khis as well.
Here is how I came to love my mother. How I saw in her my own true nature. What was beh my skin. Inside my bones.
It was late at night when I went to Popos room. My auntie said it opos dying time and I must show respect. I put on a dress and stood between my auntie and u the foot of Popos bed. I cried a little, not too loud.
I saw my mother oher side of the room. Quiet and sad. She was cooking a soup, p herbs and medies into the steaming pot. And then I saw her pull up her sleeve and pull out a sharp knife. She put this knife on the softest part of her arm. I tried to y eyes, but could not.
And then my mother cut a pieeat from her arm. Tears poured from her fad blood spilled to the floor.
My mother took her flesh and put it in the soup. She cooked magi the aradition to try to cure her mother this one last time. She opened Popos mouth, already too tight fr to keep her spirit in. She fed her this soup, but that night Popo fleith her illness.
Even though I was young, I could see the pain of the flesh and the worth of the pain.
This is how a daughter honors her mother. It is shou so deep it is in your bohe pain of the flesh is nothing. The pain you must fet. Because sometimes that is the only way to remember what is in your bones. You must peel off your skin, and that of your mother, and her mother before her. Until there is nothing. No scar, no skin, no flesh.
The Red Candle
Lindo Jong
I once sacrificed my life to keep my parents promise. This means nothing to you, because to you promises mean nothing. A daughter promise to e to dinner, but if she has a headache, if she has a traffic jam, if she wants to watch a favorite movie on TV, she no longer has a promis.99ｌｉb.e.
I watched this same movie when you did not e. The Ameri soldier promises to e bad marry the girl. She is g with a genuine feeling and he says, "Promise! Promise! Honey-sweetheart, my promise is as good as gold." Then he pushes her onto the bed. But he doesnt e back. His gold is like yours, it is only fourteen carats.
To ese people, fourteen carats isnt real gold. Feel my bracelets. They must be twenty-four carats, pure inside and out.
Its too late to ge you, but Im telling you this because I worry about your baby. I worry that someday she will say, "Thank you, Grandmother, for the gold bracelet. Ill never fet you." But later, she will fet her promise. She will fet she had a grandmother.
In this same war movie, the Ameri soldier goes home and he falls to his knees asking anirl to marry him. And the girls eyes run bad forth, so shy, as if she had never sidered this before. And suddenly!—her eyes look straight down and she knows now she loves him, so much she wants to cry. "Yes," she says at last, and they marry forever.
This was not my case. Instead, the village matchmaker came to my family when I was just two years old. No, nobody told me this, I remember it all. It was summertime, very hot and dusty outside, and I could hear cicadas g in the yard. We were under some trees in our orchard. The servants and my brothers were pig pears high above me. And I was sitting in my mothers hot sticky arms. I was waving my hand this way and that, because in front of me floated a small bird with horns and colorful paper-thin wings. And then the paper bird flew away and in front of me were two ladies. I remember them because one lady made watery "shrrhh, shrrhh" sounds. When I was older, I came this as a Peking at, which sounds quite strao Taiyuan peoples ears.
The two ladies were looking at my face without talking. The lady with the watery voice had a painted face that was melting. The other lady had the dry face of an old tree trunk. She looked first at me, then at the painted lady.
Of course, now I know the tree-trunk lady was the old village matchmaker, and the other was Huang Taitai, the mother of the boy I would be forced to marry. No, its not true what some ese say about girl babies being worthless. It depends on what kind of girl baby you are. In my case, people could see my value. I looked and smelled like a precious buncake, sweet with a good color.
The matchmaker bragged about me: "Ah horse for ah sheep. This is the best marriage bination." She patted my arm and I pushed her hand away. Huang Taitai whispered in her shrrhh-shrrhh voice that perhaps I had an unusually bad pichi, a bad temper. But the matchmaker laughed and said, "Not so, not so. She is a strong horse. She will grow up to be a hard worker who serves you well in your old age."
And this is when Huang Taitai looked down at me with a cloudy face as though she could pee my thoughts and see my future iions. I will never fet her look. Her eyes opened wide, she searched my face carefully and then she smiled. I could see a large gold tooth staring at me like the blinding sun and then the rest of her teeth opened wide as if she were going to swallow me down in one piece.
This is how I became betrothed to Huang Taitais son, who I later discovered was just a baby, one year youhan I. His name was Tyan-yu—tyan for "sky," because he was so important, and yu, meaning "leftovers," because when he was born his father was very sid his family thought he might die. Tyan-yu would be the leftover of his fathers spirit. But his father lived and his grandmother was scared the ghosts would turn their attention to this baby boy and take him instead. So they watched him c９９ｌｉｂ.arefully, made all his decisions, and he became very spoiled.
But even if I had known I was getting such a bad husband, I had no choiow or later. That was how backward families in the try were. We were always the last to give up stupid old-fashioned s. In other cities already, a man could choose his own wife, with his parents permission of course. But we were cut off from this type of hought. You never heard if ideas were better in another city, only if they were worse. We were told stories of sons who were so influenced by bad wives that they threw their old, g parents out into the street. So, Taiyuahers tio choose their daughters-in-law, ones who would raise proper sons, care for the old people, and faithfully sweep the family burial grounds long after the old ladies had goo their graves.
Because I romised to the Huangs son for marriage, my own family begaing me as if I beloo somebody else. My mother would say to me when the rice bowl went up to my faany times, "Look how much Huang Taitais daughter eat."
My mother did not treat me this way because she didnt love me. She would say this biting back her tongue, so she wouldnt wish for something that was no longer hers.
I was actually a very obedient child, but sometimes I had a sour look on my faly because I was hot or tired or very ill. This is when my mother would say, "Su ugly face. The Huangs wont want you and our whole family will be disgraced." And I would cry more to make my face uglier.
"Its no use," my mother would say. "We have made a tract. It ot be broken." And I would cry even harder.
I didnt see my future husband until I was eight or he world that I knew was our family pound in the village outside of Taiyuan. My family lived in a modest two-story house with a smaller house in the same pound, which was really just two side-by-side rooms for our cook, an everyday servant, and their families. Our house sat on a little hill. We called this hill Three Steps to Heaven, but it was really just turies of hardened layers of mud washed up by the Fen River. On the east wall of our pound was the river, which my father said liked to swallow little children. He said it had once swallowed the whole town of Taiyuan. The river ran brown in the summer. In the wihe river was blue-green in the narrow fast-moving spots. In the wider places, it was frozen still, white with cold.
Oh, I remember the new year when my family went to the river and caught many fish—giant slippery creatures plucked while they were still sleeping in their frozen riverbeds—so fresh that even after they were gutted they would dan their tails when thrown into the hot pan.
That was also the year I first saw my husband as a little boy. When the firecrackers went off, he cried loud—wah!—with a big open mouth even though he was not a baby.
Later I would see him at red-egg ceremonies when one-month-old boy babies were given their real names. He would sit on his grandmothers old knees, almost crag them with his weight. And he would refuse to eat everything offered to him, always turning his nose away as though someone were him a stinky pickle and not a sweet cake.
So I didnt have instant love for my future husband the way you see on television today. I thought of this boy more like a troublesome cousin. I learo be polite to the Huangs and especially to Huang Taitai. My mother would push me toward Huang Taitai and say, "What do you say to your mother?" And I would be fused, not knowing which mother she meant. So I would turn to my real mother and say, "Excuse me, Ma," and then I would turn to Huang Taitai and present her with a little goodie to eat, saying, "For you, Mother." I remember it was once a lump of syaumei, a little dumpling I loved to eat. My mother told Huang Taitai I had made this dumpling especially for her, even though I had only poked its steamy sides with my finger when the cook poured it onto the serving plate.
My life ged pletely when I was twelve, the summer the heavy rains came. The Fen River which ran through the middle of my familys land flooded the plains. It destroyed all the wheat my family had plahat year and made the land useless for years to e. Even our house on top of the little hill became unlivable. When we came down from the sed story, we saw the floors and furniture were covered with sticky mud. The courtyards were littered with uprooted trees, broken bits of walls, and dead chis. We were so poor in all this mess.
You couldnt go to an insuranpany back then and say, Somebody did this damage, pay me a million dollars. In those days, you were unlucky if you had exhausted your own possibilities. My father said we had no choice but to move the family to Wushi, to the south near Shanghai, where my mothers brother owned a small flour mill. My father explaihat the whole family, except for me, would leave immediately. I was twelve years old, old enough to separate from my family and live with the Huangs.
The roads were so muddy and filled with giant potholes that no truck was willing to e to the house. All the heavy furniture and bedding had to be left behind, and these were promised to the Huangs as my dowry. In this way, my family was quite practical. The dowry was enough, more than enough, said my father. But he could not stop my mother from giving me her g, a necklace made out of a tablet of red jade. Whe it around my neck, she acted very stern, so I knew she was very sad. "Obey your family. Do not disgrace us," she said. "Act happy when you arrive. Really, youre very lucky."
The Huangs house also sat o the river. While our house had been flooded, their house was untouched. This is because their house sat higher up in the valley. And this was the first time I realized the Huangs had a much better position than my family. They looked down on us, which made me uand why Huang Taitai and Tyan-yu had such long noses.
When I passed uhe Huangs stone-and-wood gateway arch, I saw a large courtyard with three or four rows of small, low buildings. Some were for st supplies, others for servants and their families. Behind these modest buildings stood the main house.
I walked closer and stared at the house that would be my home for the rest of my life. The house had been in the family for many geions. It was not really so old or remarkable, but I could see it had grown up along with the family. There were four stories, one for each geion: great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and children. The house had a fused look. It had been hastily built and then rooms and floors and wings and decorations had been added on in every which manner, refleg too many opinions. The first level was built of river rocks held together by straw-filled mud. The sed and third levels were made of smooth bricks with an exposed walkway to give it the look of a palace tower. And the top level had gray slab walls topped with a red tile roof. To make the house seem important, there were twe round pillars holding up a verarao the front door. These pillars were painted red, as were the wooden window borders. Someone, probably Huang Taitai, had added imperial dragon heads at the ers of the roof.
Ihe house held a different kind of pretehe only ni arlor on the first floor, which the Huangs used to receive guests. This room taiables and chairs carved out of red lacquer, fine pillows embroidered with the Huang family name in the a style, and many precious things that gave the look of wealth and old prestige. The rest of the house lain and unfortable and noisy with the plaints of twenty relatives. I think with each geion the house had grown smaller inside, more crowded. Ea had been cut in half to make two.
No big celebration was held when I arrived. Huang Taitai didnt have red banners greeting me in the fan on the first floor. Tyan-yu was not there to greet me. Instead, Huang Taitai hurried me upstairs to the sed floor and into the kit, which lace where family children didnt usually go. This lace for cooks and servants. So I knew my standing.
That first day, I stood in my best padded dress at the low wooden table and began to chop vegetables. I could not keep my hands steady. I missed my family and my stomach felt bad, knowing I had finally arrived where my life said I belonged. But I was also determio honor my parents words, so Huang Taitai could never accuse my mother of losing face. She would not win that from our family.
As I was thinking this I saw an old servant woman stooping over the same low table gutting a fish, looking at me from the er of her eye. I was g and I was afraid she would tell Huang Taitai. So I gave a big smile and shouted, "What a lucky girl I am. Im going to have the best life." And in this quick-thinking way I must have waved my koo close to her nose because she cried angrily, "Shemma bende ren!"—What kind of fool are you? And I knew right away this was a warning, because when I shouted that declaration of happiness, I almost tricked myself into thinking it might e true.
I saw Tyan-yu at the evening meal. I was still a few ialler than he, but he acted like a big warlord. I knew what kind of husband he would be, because he made special efforts to make me cry. He plaihe soup was not hot enough and then spilled the bowl as if it were an act. He waited until I had sat down to eat and then would demand another bowl of rice. He asked why I had su unpleasant face when looking at him.
Over the few years, Huang Taitai instructed the other servants to teach me how to se ers on pillowcases and to embroider my future familys name. How a wife keep her husbands household in order if she has never dirtied her own hands, Huang Taitai used to say as she introduced me to a ask. I dont think Huang Taitai ever soiled her hands, but she was very good at calling out orders and criticism.
"Teach her to wash rice properly so that the water runs clear. Her husband ot eat muddy rice," shed say to a cook servant.
Aime, she told a servant to show me ho..o a chamber pot: "Make her put her own o the barrel to make sure its ." That was how I learo be an obedient wife. I learo cook so well that I could smell if the meat stuffing was too salty before I even tasted it. I could sew such small stitches it looked as if the embroidery had been painted on. And even Huang Taitai plained in a pretend mahat she could scarcely throw a dirty blouse on the floor before it was ed and on her bace again, causio wear the same clothes every day.
After a while I didnt think it was a terrible life, no, not really. After a while, I hurt so much I didnt feel any difference. What was happier than seeing everybody gobble down the shiny mushrooms and bamboo shoots I had helped to prepare that day? What was more satisfying than having Huang Taitai nod and pat my head when I had finished bing her hair one hurokes? How much happier could I be after seeing Tyan-yu eat a whole bowl of noodles without onplaining about its taste or my looks? Its like those ladies you see on Ameri TV these days, the ones who are so happy they have washed out a stain so the clothes look better than new.
you see how the Huangs almost washed their thinking into my skin? I came to think of Tyan-yu as a god, someone whose opinions were worth much more than my own life. I came to think of Huang Taitai as my real mother, someone I wao please, someone I should follow and obey without question.
When I turned sixteen on the lunar new year, Huang Taitai told me she was ready to wele a grandson by spring. Even if I had not wao marry, where would I go live instead? Even though I was strong as a horse, how could I run away? The Japanese were in every er of a.
"The Japanese showed up as uninvited guests," said Tyan-yus grandmother, "and thats why nobody else came." Huang Taitai had made elaborate plans, but our wedding was very small.
She had asked the entire village and friends and family from other cities as well. In those days, you didnt do RSVP. It was not polite not to e. Huang Taitai didnt think the war would ge peoples good manners. So the cook and her helpers prepared hundreds of dishes. My familys old furniture had been shined up into an impressive dolaced in the front parlor. Huang Taitai had taken care to remove all the water and mud marks. She had even issioned someoo write feliessages on red banners, as if my parents themselves had draped these decorations to gratulate me on my good luck. And she had arrao rent a red palanquin to carry me from her neighbors house to the wedding ceremony.
A lot of bad luck fell on our wedding day, even though the matchmaker had chosen a lucky day, the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, when the moon is perfectly round and bigger than any other time of the year. But the week before the moon arrived, the Japanese came. They invaded Shansi province, as well as the provinces b us. People were nervous. And the m of the fifteenth, on the day of the wedding celebration, it began to rain, a very bad sign. Whehunder and lightning began, people fused it with Japanese bombs and would not leave their houses.
I heard later that poor Huang Taitai waited many hours for more people to e, and finally, when she could n any muests out of her hands, she decided to start the ceremony. What could she do? She could not ge the war.
I was at the neighbors house. When they called me to e down and ride the red palanquin, I was sitting at a small dressing table by an open window. I began to cry and thought bitterly about my parents promise. I wondered why my destiny had been decided, why I should have an unhappy life so someone else could have a happy one. From my seat by the window I could see the Fen River with its muddy brown waters. I thought about throwing my body into this river that had destroyed my familys happiness. A person has very strahoughts when it seems that life is about to end.
It started to rain again, just a light rain. The people from downstairs called up to me once again to hurry. And my thoughts became more urgent, more strange.
I asked myself, What is true about a person? Would I ge in the same way the river ges color but still be the same person? And then I saw the curtains blowing wildly, and outside rain was falling harder, causing everyoo scurry and shout. I smiled. And then I realized it was the first time I could see the power of the wind. I couldhe wind itself, but I could see it carried the water that filled the rivers and shaped the tryside. It caused men to yelp and dance.
I wiped my eyes and looked in the mirror. I was surprised at what I saw. I had on a beautiful red dress, but what I saw was even more valuable. I was strong. I ure. I had gehoughts ihat no one could see, that no one could ever take away from me. I was like the wind.
I threw my head bad smiled proudly to myself. And then I draped the large embroidered red scarf over my fad covered these thoughts up. But underh the scarf I still knew who I was. I made a promise to myself: I would always remember my parents wishes, but I would never fet myself.
When I arrived at the wedding, I had the red scarf over my fad couldnt see anything in front of me. But when I bent my head forward, I could see out the sides. Very few people had e. I saw the Huangs, the same old plainiives now embarrassed by this poor showing, the eainers with their violins and flutes. And there were a few village people who had been brave enough to e out for a free meal. I even saw servants and their children, who must have been added to make the party look bigger.
Someoook my hands and guided me doath. I was like a blind person walking to my fate. But I was no longer scared. I could see what was inside me.
A high official ducted the ceremony aalked too long about philosophers and models of virtue. Then I heard the matchmaker speak about our birthdates and harmony aility. I tipped my veiled head forward and I could see her hands unfolding a red silk scarf and holding up a red dle for everyoo see.
The dle had two ends fhting. Oh had carved gold characters with Tyan-yus he other with mihe matchmaker lighted both ends and announced, "The marriage has begun." Tyan yahe scarf off my fad smiled at his friends and family, never even looking at me. He reminded me of a young peacock I once saw that acted as if he had just claimed the entire courtyard by fanning his still-short tail.
I saw the matchmaker place the lighted red dle in a gold holder and then hand it to a nervous-looking servant. This servant was supposed to watch the dle during the ba and all night to make sure her e out. In the m the matchmaker was supposed to show the result, a little piece of black ash, and then declare, "This dle burned tinuously at both ends without going out. This is a marriage that ever be broken."
I still remember. That dle was a marriage bond that was worth more than a Catholiise not to divorce. It meant I couldnt divord I couldnt ever remarry, even if Tyan-yu died. That red dle was supposed to seal me forever with my husband and his family, no excuses afterward.
And sure enough, the matchmaker made her declaration the m and showed she had done her job. But I know what really happened, because I stayed up all night g about my marriage.
After the ba, our small wedding party pushed us and half carried us up to the third floor to our small bedroom. People were shouting jokes and pulling boys from underh the bed. The matchmaker helped small children pull red eggs that had been hiddeween the blas. The boys who were about Tyan-yus age made us sit on the bed side by side and everybody made us kiss so our faces would turn red with passion. Firecrackers exploded on the walkway outside our open window and someone said this was a good excuse for me to jump into my husbands arms.
After everyo, we sat there side by side without words for many minutes, still listening to the laughing outside. When it grew quiet, Tyan-yu said, "This is my bed. You sleep on the sofa." He threillow and a thin blao me. I was so glad! I waited until he fell asleep and then I got up quietly a outside, dowairs and into the dark courtyard.
Outside it smelled as if it would soon rain again. I was g, walking in my bare feet and feeling the wet heat still ihe bricks. Across the courtyard I could see the matchmakers servant through a yellow-lit open window. She was sitting at a table, looking very sleepy as the red dle burned in its special gold holder. I sat down by a tree to watch my fate being decided for me.
I must have fallen asleep because I remember being startled awake by the sound of loud crag thuhats when I saw the matchmakers servant running from the room, scared as a chi about to lose its head. Oh, she was asleep too, I thought, and now she thinks its the Japanese. I laughed. The whole sky became light and then more thunder came, and she ran out of the courtyard and down the road, going so fast and hard I could see pebbles kig up behind her. Where does she think shes running to, I wondered, still laughing. And then I saw the red dle flickering just a little with the breeze.
I was not thinking when my legs lifted me up and my feet ran me across the courtyard to the yellow-lit room. But I was hoping—I raying to Buddha, the goddess of mercy, and the full moon—to make that dle go out. It fluttered a little and the flame bent down low, but still both ends burrong. My throat filled with so much hope that it finally burst and blew out my husbands end of the dle.
I immediately shivered with fear. I thought a knife would appear and cut me down dead. Or the sky would open up and blow me away. B..ut nothing happened, and when my senses came back, I walked bay room with fast guilty steps.
The m the matchmaker made her proud declaration in front of Tyan-yu, his parents, and myself. "My job is done," she announced, p the remaining black ash onto the red cloth. I saw her servants shame-faced, mournful look.
I learo love Tyan-yu, but it is not how you think. From the beginning, I would always bee sick thinking he would someday climb on top of me and do his business. Every time I went into our bedroom, my hair would already be standing up. But during the first months, he ouched me. He slept in his bed, I slept on my sofa.
In front of his parents, I was an obedient wife, just as they taught me. I instructed the cook to kill a fresh young chi every m and cook it until pure juice came out. I would strain this juice myself into a bowl, never adding any water. I gave this to him for breakfast, murmuring good wishes about his health. And every night I would cook a special tonic soup called tounau, which was not only very delicious but has eight ingredients that guarantee long life for mothers. This pleased my mother-in-law very much.
But it was not enough to keep her happy. One m, Huang Taitai and I were sitting in the same room, w on our embroidery. I was dreaming about my childhood, about a pet frog I once kept named Big Wind. Huang Taitai seemed restless, as if she had an it the bottom of her shoe. I heard her huffing and then all of a suddeood up from her chair, walked over to me, and slapped my face.
"Bad wife!" she cried. "If you refuse to sleep with my son, I refuse to feed you or clothe you." So thats how I knew what my husband had said to avoid his mothers anger. I was also boiling with anger, but I said nothing, remembering my promise to my parents to be an obedient wife.
That night I sat on Tyan-yus bed and waited for him to touch me. But he didnt. I was relieved. The night, I lay straight down on the bed o him. And still he didnt touch me. So the night, I took off my gown.
Thats when I could see what was underh Tyan-yu. He was scared and turned his face. He had no desire for me, but it was his fear that made me think he had no desire for any woman. He was like a little boy who had never grown up. After a while I was no longer afraid. I even began to think differently toward Tyan-yu. It was not like the way a wife loves a husband, but more like the way a sister protects a younger brother. I put my gown ba and lay dowo him and rubbed his back. I knew I no longer had to be afraid. I was sleeping with Tyanyu. He would ouch me and I had a fortable bed to sleep on.
After more months had passed and my stomad breasts remained small and flat, Huang Taitai flew into another kind e. "My son says hes planted enough seeds for thousands of grandchildren. Where are they? It must be you are doing something wrong." And after that she fined me to the bed so that her grandchildrens seeds would not spill out so easily.
Oh, you think it is so much fun to lie in bed all day, never getting up. But I tell you it was worse than a prison. I think Huang Taitai became a little crazy.
She told the servants to take all sharp things out of the room, thinking scissors and knives were cutting off her geion. She forbade me from sewing. She said I must trate and think of nothing but having babies. And four times a day, a very nice servant girl would e into my room, apologizing the whole time while making me drink a terrible-tasting medie.
I ehis girl, the way she could walk out the door. Sometimes as I watched her from my window, I would imagine I was that girl, standing in the courtyard, bargaining with the traveling shoe mender, gossiping with other servant girls, scolding a handsome delivery man in her high teasing voice.
One day, after two months had gone by without as, Huang Taitai called the old matchmaker to the house. The matchmaker examined me closely, looked up my birthdate and the hour of my birth, and then asked Huang Taitai about my nature. Finally, the matchmaker gave her clusions: "Its clear what has happened. A woman have sons only if she is defit in one of the elements. Your daughter-in-law was born with enough wood, fire, water, ah, and she was defit ial, which was a good sign. But when she was married, you loaded her down with gold bracelets and decorations and now she has all the elements, includial. Shes too balao have babies."
This turned out to be joyous news for Huang Taitai, for she liked nothier than to reclaim all her gold and jewelry to help me bee fertile. And it was good news for me too. Because after the gold was removed from my body, I felt lighter, more free. They say this is what happens if you lack metal. You begin to think as an indepe person. That day I started to think about how I would escape this marriage without breaking my promise to my family.
It was really quite simple. I made the Huangs think it was their idea to get rid of me, that they would be the oo say the marriage tract was not valid.
I thought about my plan for many days. I observed everyone arouhe thoughts they showed in their faces, and then I was ready. I chose an auspicious day, the third day of the third month. Thats the day of the Festival of Pure Brightness. On this day, your thoughts must be clear as you prepare to think about your aors. Thats the day when everyone goes to the family graves. They bring hoes to clear the weeds and brooms to sweep the stones and they offer dumplings and es as spiritual food. Oh, its not a somber day, more like a piic, but it has special meaning to someone looking frandsons.
On the m of that day, I woke up Tyan-yu and the entire house with my wailing. It took Huang Taitai a long time to e into my room. "Whats wrong with her now," she cried from her room. "Go make her be quiet." But finally, after my wailing didnt stop, she rushed into my room, scoldi the top of her voice.
I was clutg my mouth with one hand and my eyes with another. My body was writhing as if I were seized by a terrible pain. I was quite ving, because Huang Taitai drew bad grew small like a scared animal.
"Whats wrong, little daughter? Tell me quickly," she cried.
"Oh, its too terrible to think, too terrible to say," I said between gasps and more wailing.
After enough wailing, I said what was so unthinkable. "I had a dream," I reported. "Our aors came to me and said they wao see our wedding. So Tyan-yu and I held the same ceremony for our aors. We saw the matchmaker light the dle and give it to the servant to watch. Our aors were so pleased, so pleased…."
Huang Taitai looked impatient as I began to cry softly again. "But then the servahe room with our dle and a big wind came and blew the dle out. And our aors became very angry. They shouted that the marriage was doomed! They said that Tyan-yus end of the dle had blown out! Our aors said Tyan-yu would die if he stayed in this marriage!"
Tyan-yus face turned white. But Huang Taitai only frowned. "What a stupid girl to have such bad dreams!" And then she scolded everybody to go back to bed.
"Mother," I called to her in a hoarse whisper. "Please dont leave me! I am afraid! Our aors said if the matter is not settled, they would begin the cycle of destru."
"What is this nonsense!" cried Huang Taitai, turning back toward me. Tyan-yu followed her, wearing his mothers same frowning face. And I khey were almost caught, two ducks leaning into the pot.
"They knew you would not believe me," I said in a remorseful tone, "because they know I do not want to leave the forts of my marriage. So our aors said they would plant the signs, to show our marriage is now rotting."
"What nonsense from your stupid head," said Huang Taitai, sighing. But she could not resist. "What signs?"
"In my dream, I saw a man with a long beard and a mole on his cheek."
"Tyan-yus grandfather?" asked Huang Taitai. I nodded, remembering the painting I had observed on the wall.
"He said there are three signs. First, he has drawn a black spot on Tyan-yus back, and this spot will grow a away Tyan-yus flesh just as it ate away our aors face before he died."
Huang Taitai quickly turo Tyan-yu and pulled his shirt up. "Ai-ya!" she cried, because there it was, the same black mole, the size of a fiip, just as I had always seen it these past five months of sleeping as sister and brother.
"And then our aor touched my mouth," and I patted my cheek as if it already hurt. "He said my teeth would start to fall out one by one, until I could no longer protest leaving this marriage."
Huang Taitai pried open my mouth and gasped upon seeing the open spot in the bay mouth where a rotted tooth fell out four years ago.
"And finally, I saw him plant a seed in a servant girls womb. He said this girl only pretends to e from a bad family. But she is really from imperial blood, and…"
I lay my head down on the pillow as if too tired to go on. Huang Taitai pushed my shoulder, "What does he say?"
"He said the servant girl is Tyan-yus true spiritual wife. And the seed he has planted will grow into Tyan-yus child."
By mid-m they had dragged the matchmakers servant over to our house aracted her terrible fession.
And after much searg they found the servant girl I liked so much, the one I had watched from my window every day. I had seen her eyes grow bigger aeasing voice bee smaller whehe handsome delivery man arrived. And later, I had watched her stomach grow rounder and her face bee longer with fear and worry.
So you imagine hoy she was when they forced her to tell the truth about her imperial ary. I heard later she was so struck with this miraarrying Tyan-yu she became a very religious person who ordered servants to sweep the araves not just once a year, but once a day.
Theres no more to the story. They didnt blame me so much. Huang Taitai got her grandson. I got my clothes, a rail ticket to Peking, and enough moo go to America. The Huangs asked only that I ell anybody of any importance about the story of my doomed marriage.
Its a true story, how I kept my promise, how I sacrificed my life. See the gold metal I ow wear. I gave birth to your brothers and then your father gave me these two bracelets. Then I had you. And every few years, when I have a little extra money, I buy another bracelet. I know what Im worth. Theyre always twenty-four carats, all genuine.
But Ill never fet. On the day of the Festiv..al of Pure Brightness, I take off all my bracelets. I remember the day when I finally knew a gehought and could follow where it went. That was the day I was a young girl with my fader a red marriage scarf. I promised not tet myself.
How is to be that girl again, to take off my scarf, to see what is underh ahe lightness e bato my body!
The Moon Lady
Ying-Ying St. Clair
For all these years I kept my mouth closed so selfish desires would not fall out. And because I remained quiet for so long now my daughter does not hear me. She sits by her fancy swimming pool and hears only her Sony Walkman, her cordless phone, her big, important husband asking her why they have charcoal and no lighter fluid.
All these years I kept my true nature hidden, running along like a small shadow so nobody could catch me. And because I moved so secretly now my daughter does not see me. She sees a list of things to buy, her checkbook out of balance, her ashtray sitting crooked on a straig?ht table.
And I want to tell her this: We are lost, she and I, unseen and not seeing, unheard and not hearing, unknown by others.
I did not lose myself all at once. I rubbed out my face over the years washing away my pain, the same way carvings on stone are worn down by water.
Yet today I remember a time when I ran and shouted, when I could not stand still. It is my earliest recolle: telling the Moon Lady my secret wish. And because I fot what I wished for, that memory remained hidden from me all these many years.
But now I remember the wish, and I recall the details of that entire day, as clearly as I see my daughter and the foolishness of her life.
In 1918, the year that I was four, the Mooival arrived during an autumn in Wushi that was unusually hot, terribly hot. When I awoke that m, the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, the straw mat c my bed was already sticky. Everything in the room smelled of wet grass simmering in the heat.
Earlier in the summer, the servants had covered all the windows with bamboo curtains to drive out the sun. Every bed was covered with a woven mat, our only bedding during the months of sta heat. And the hot bricks of the courtyard were crisscrossed with bamboo paths. Autumn had e, but without its s and evenings. And so the stale heat still remained in the shadows behind the curtains, heating up the acrid smells of my chamber pot, seeping into my pillow, chafing the bay ned puffing up my cheeks, so that I awoke that m with a restless plaint.
There was another smell, outside, something burning, a pu fragrahat was half sweet and half bitter. "Whats that stinky smell?" I asked my amah, who always mao appear o my bed the instant I was awake. She slept on a cot in a little room o mine.
"It is the same as I explained yesterday," she said, lifti of my bed aing me on her knee. And my sleepy mind tried to remember what she had told me upon waking the m before.
"We are burning the Five Evils," I said drowsily, then squirmed out of her warm lap. I climbed on top of a little stool and looked out the window into the courtyard below. I saw a green coil curled in the shape of a snake, with a tail that billowed yellow smoke. The other day, Amah had showhat the snake had e out of a colorful box decorated with five evil creatures: a swimming snake, a jumping scorpion, a flyiipede, a dropping-down spider, and a springing lizard. The bite of any one of these creatures could kill a child, explained Amah. So I was relieved to think we had caught the Five Evils and were burning their corpses. I didnt know the green coil was merely inse used to chase away mosquitoes and small flies.
That day, instead of dressing me in a light cotton jacket and loose trousers, Amah brought out a heavy yellow silk jacket and skirt outlined with black bands.
"No time to play today," said Amah, opening the lined jacket. "Your mother has made you iger clothes for the Mooival…." She lifted me into the pants. "Very important day, and now you are a big girl, so you go to the ceremony."
"What is a ceremony?" I asked as Amah slipped the jacket over my cotton undergarments.
"It is a proper way to behave. You do this and that, so the gods do not punish you," said Amah as she fastened my frog clasps.
"What kind of punishment?" I asked boldly.
"Too many questions!" cried Amah. "You do not o uand. Just behave, follow your mothers example. Light the inse, make an to the moon, bow your head. Do not shame me, Ying-ying."
I bowed my head with a pout. I noticed the black bands on my sleeves, the tiny embroidered peonies growing from curlicues of gold thread. I remembered watg my mother pushing a silver needle in and out, gently nudging flowers and leaves and vio bloom on the cloth.
And then I heard voices in the courtyard. Standing on my stool, I straio find them. Somebody was plaining about the heat: "…feel my arm, steamed soft clear to the bone." Maives from the north had arrived for the Mooival and were staying for the week.
Amah tried to pull a wide b through my hair and I preteo tumble off the stool as soon as she reached a knot.
"Stand still, Ying-ying!" she cried, her usual lament, while I giggled and wobbled oool. And then she yahe full length of my hair like the reins of a horse and before I could fall off the stool again, she quickly twisted my hair into a single braid off to the side, weaving into it five strands of colorful silk. She wound my braid into a tight ball, then arranged and she loose silk strands until they fell into a assel.
She spun me around to i her handiwork. I was roasting in the lined silk jacket and pants obviously made with a cooler day in mind. My scalp was burning with the pain of Amahs attentions. What kind of day could be worth so much suffering?
"Pretty," pronounced Amah, even though I wore a scowl on my face.
"Who is ing today?" I asked.
"Dajya"—All the family—she said happily. "We are all going to Tai Lake. The family has rented a boat with a famous chef. And tonight at the ceremony you will see the Moon Lady."
"The Moon Lady! The Moon Lady!" I said, jumping up and down with great delight. And then, after I ceased to be amazed with the pleasant sounds of my voice saying new words, I tugged Amahs sleeve and asked: "Who is the Moon Lady?"
"g-o. She lives on the moon and today is the only day you see her and have a secret wish fulfilled."
"What is a secret wish?"
"It is what you want but ot ask," said Amah.
"Why t I ask?"
"This is because…because if you ask it…it is no longer a wish but a selfish desire," said Amah. "Havent I taught you—that it is wrong to think of your own needs? A girl ever ask, only listen."
"Then how will the Moon Lady know my wish?"
"Ai! You ask too much already! You ask her because she is not an ordinary person."
Satisfied at last, I immediately said: "Then I will tell her I dont want to wear these clothes anymore."
"Ah! Did I not just explain?" said Amah. "Now that you have mentiohis to me, it is not a secret wish anymore."
During the m meal nobody seemed in a hurry to go to the lake; this person and that always eating one more thing. And after breakfast everybody kept talking about things of little sequence. I grew more worried and unhappy by the minute.
"…Autumn moon warms. O! Geese shadows return." Baba was reg a long poem he had deciphered from a stone inscriptions.
"The third word in the line," explained Baba, "was worn off the slab, its meaning washed away by turies of rain, almost lost to posterity forever."
"Ah, but fortunately," said my uncle, his eyes twinkling, "you are a dedicated scholar of a history and literature. You were able to solve it, I think."
My father responded with the line: "Mist flowers radiant. O!…"
Mama was telling my aunt and the old ladies how to mix various herbs and is to produce a balm: "This you rub here, betweewo spots. Rub it vigorously until your skis and the aess is burned out."
"Ai! But how I rub a swollen foot?" lamehe old lady. "Both inside and outside have a sour painful feeling. Too teo even touch!"
"It is the heat," plained another old auntie. "Cooking all your flesh dry and brittle."
"And burning your eyes!" exclaimed my great-aunt.
I sighed over and aiime they started a opic. Amah finally noticed me and gave me a mooncake in the shape of a rabbit. She said I could sit in the courtyard a it with my two little half-sisters, wo and hree.
It is easy tet about a boat when you have a rabbit mooncake in your hand. The three of us walked quickly out of the room, and as soon as we passed through the moohat led to the inner courtyard, we tumbled and shrieked, running to see who could get to the stone bench first. I was the biggest, so I sat in the shady part, where the stone slab was y half-sisters sat in the sun. I broke off a rabbit ear for each of them. The ears were just dough, no sweet filling yolk inside, but my half-sisters were too little to know aer.
"Sister likes me better," said wo to hree.
"Me better," said hree to wo.
"Dont make trouble," I said to them both. I ate the rabbits body, rolling my tongue over my lips to lick off the sticky bean paste.
We picked crumbs off one another, and after we finished our treat it grew quiet and once again I became restless. Suddenly I saw a dragonfly with a large crimson body and transparent wings. I leapt off the bend ran to chase it, and my half-sisters followed me, jumping and thrusting their hands upward as it flew away.
"Ying-ying!" I heard Amah call, and wo and hree ran off. Amah was standing in the courtyard and my mother and the other ladies were now ing through the moongate. Amah rushed over a down to smooth my yellow jacket. "Syin yifu! Yidafadwo!"—Your new clothes! Everything, all over the place!—she cried in a show of distress.
My mother smiled and walked over to me. She smoothed some of my wayward hairs ba plad tucked them into my coiled braid. "A boy run and chase dragonflies, because that is his nature," she said. "But a girl should stand still. If you are still for a very long time, a dragonfly will no longer see you. Then it will e to you and hide in the fort of your shadow." The old ladies clucked in agreement and then they all left me in the middle of the hot courtyard.
Standing perfectly still like that, I discovered my shadow. At first it was just a dark spot on the bamboo mats that covered the courtyard bricks. It had short legs and long arms, a dark coiled braid just like mine. When I shook my head, it shook its head. We flapped our arms. We raised one leg. I turo walk away and it followed me. I turned back around quickly and it faced me. I lifted the bamboo mat to see if I could peel off my shadow, but it was uhe mat, on the brick. I shrieked with delight at my shadows own cleverness. I ran to the shade uhe tree, watg my shadow chase me. It disappeared. I loved my shadow, this dark side of me that had my same restless nature.
And then I heard Amah calling me again. "Ying-ying! It is time. Are you ready to go to the lake?" I nodded my head and began to run toward her, my self running ahead. "Slowly, go slowly," admonished Amah.
Our entire family was already standing outside, chattiedly. Everybody was dressed i important-looking clothes. Baba was in a new brown-cown, which while plain was of an obviously fine-quality silk weave and workmanship. Mama had on a jacket and skirt with colors that were the reverse of mine: black silk with yellow bands. My half-sisters wore rose-colored tunid so did their mothers, my fathers es. My older brother had on a blue jacket embroidered with shapes resembling Buddha scepters for long life. Even the old ladies had put on their best clothes to celebrate: Mamas aunt, Babas mother and her cousin, and Great-uncles fat wife, who still plucked her forehead bald and always walked as if she were crossing a slippery stream, two tiny steps and then a scared look.
The servants had already packed and loaded a rickshaw with the days basic provisions: a woven hamper filled with zong zi—the sticky rice ed in lotus leaves, some filled with roasted ham, some with sweet lotus seeds; a small stove for boiling water for hot tea; another hamper taining cups and bowls and chopsticks; a cotton sack of apples, pomegranates, and pears; sweaty earthen jars of preserved meats aables; stacks of red boxes lined with four mooncakes each; and of course, sleeping mats for our afternoon nap.
Then everybody climbed into rickshaws, the younger children sittio their amahs. At the last moment, before we all set off, I wriggled out of Amahs grasp and jumped out of the rickshaw. I climbed into the rickshaw with my mother in it, which displeased Amah, because this resumptuous behavior on my part and also because Amah loved me better than her own. She had given up her own child, a baby son, when her husband had died and she had e to our house to be my nursemaid. But I was very spoiled because of her; she had aught me to think about her feelings. So I thought of Amah only as someone for my fort, the way you might think of a fan in the summer or a heater in the winter, a blessing you appreciate and love only when it is no lohere.
When we arrived at the lake, I was disappoio feel no cooling breezes. Our rickshaw pullers were soaked with sweat and their mouths were open and panting like horses. At the dock, I watched as the old ladies aarted climbing aboard a large boat our family had rehe boat looked like a floating teahouse, with an open-air pavilion larger than the one in our courtyard. It had many red ns and a peaked tile roof, and behind that what looked like a garden house with round windows.
When it was our turn, Amah grasped my hand tightly and we bounced across the plank. But as soon as my feet touched the deck, I sprang free and, together with wo and hree, I pushed my ast peoples legs enclosed in billows of dark and bright silk clothes—trying to see who would be the first to run the length of the boat.
I loved the unsteady feeling of almost falling one way then another. Red lanterns hanging from the roof and railings swayed, as if pushed by a breeze. My half-sisters and I ran our fingers over benches and small tables in the pavilioraced our fingers over the patterns of the oral wood railings and poked our faces through openings to see the water below. And then there were more things to find!
I opened a heavy door leading into the garden house and ran past a room that looked like a large sitting area. My sisters followed behind laughing. Through another door, I saw people in a kit. A man holding a big cleaver turned and saw us, then called to us, as we shyly smiled and backed away.
At the rear of the boat oor-looking people: a man feeding sticks into a tall ey stove, a woman choppiables, and twh-looking boys squatting close to the edge of the boat, holding what looked to be a piece of string attached to a wire-mesh cage lying just below the surface of the water. They gave us not even a glance.
We returo the front of the boat, just in time to see the dock moving away from us. Mama and the other ladies were already seated on benches around the pavilion, fanning themselves furiously and slapping the sides of each others heads when mosquitoes lighted. Baba and Uncle were leaning over a rail, talking in deep, serious voices. My brother and some of his boy cousins had found a long bamboo stid were poking the water as if they could make the boat go faster. The servants were seated in a cluster at the front, heating water for tea, shelling roasted gingko nuts, aying out hampers of food for a noonday meal of cold dishes.
Even though Tai Lake is one of the largest in all of a, that day it seemed crowded with boats: rowboats, pedal boats, sailboats, fishing boats, and floating pavilions like ours. So we often passed other people leaning out to trail their hands in the cool water, some drifting by asleep beh a cloth opy or oil-coated umbrella.
Suddenly I heard people g, "Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!" and I thought, At last, the day has begun! I raced to the pavilion and found aunts and uncles laughing as they used chopsticks to pick up dang shrimp, still squirming in their shells, their tiny legs bristling. So this was what the mesh cage beh the water had tained, freshwater shrimp, which my father was now dipping into a spicy bean-curd saud popping into his mouth with two bites and a swallow.
But the excitement soon waned, and the afternoon seemed to pass like any other at home. The same listlessness after the meal. A little drowsy gossip with hot tea. Amah tellio lie down on my mat. The quiet as everyone slept through the hottest part of the day.
I sat up and saw Amah was still asleep, lying askew on her sleeping mat. I wao the back of the boat. The rough-looking boys were removing a large, squawking long-necked bird from a bamboo cage. The bird had a metal ring around its neck. One boy held onto the bird, ing his arms around the birds wings. The other tied a thick rope to a loop oal neck ring. Then they released the bird and it swooped with a flurry of white wings, hovered over the edge of the boat, then sat on top of the shiny water. I walked over to the edge and looked at the bird. He looked back at me warily with one eye. Then the bird dove uhe water and disappeared.
One of the boys threw a raft made of hollow reed flutes into the water and then dove in and emerged on top of the raft. In a few seds, the bird also emerged, its head struggling to hold onto a large fish. The bird jumped onto the raft and then tried to swallow the fish, but of course, with the ring around its neck, it could not. Iion, the boy on the raft snatched the fish from the birds mouth and threw it to the other boy on the boat. I clapped my hands and the bird dove under water again.
For the hour, while Amah and everybody else slept, I watched like a hungry cat waiting its turn, as fish after fish appeared in the birds beak only to land in a wooden pail on the boat. Then the boy ier cried to the other, "Enough!" and the boy on the boat shouted to someone high atop the part of the boat I could not see. And loud ks and hissing soued as once again the boat began to move. Then the boy o me dove into the water. Both boys got on the raft and crouched in the middle like two birds perched on a branch. I waved to them, envying their carefree ways, and soon they were far away, a little yellow spot bobbing oer.
It would have been enough to see this one adventure. But I stayed, as if caught in a good dream. And sure enough, I turned around and a sullen woman was now squatting in front of the bucket of fish. I watched as she took out a sharp, thin knife and began to slice open the fish bellies, pulling out the red slippery insides and throwing them over her shoulder into the lake. I saw her scrape off the fish scales, which flew in the air like shards of glass. And then there were two chis that no lurgled after their heads were chopped off. And a big snapping turtle that stretched out its o bite a stick, and—whuck!—off fell its head. And dark masses of thin freshwater eels, swimming furiously in a pot. Then the woman carried everything, without a word, into the kit. And there was nothing else to see.
It was not until then, too late, that I saw my new clothes—and the spots of bloods, flecks of fish scales, bits of feather and mud. What a strange mind I had! In my pani hearing waking voices toward the front of the boat, I quickly dipped my hands in the bowl of turtles blood and smeared this on my sleeves, and on the front of my pants and jacket. And this is what I truly thought: that I could cover these spots by painting all my clothes crimson red, and that if I stood perfectly still no one would notice this ge.
That is how Amah found me: an apparition covered with blood. I still hear her voice, screaming in terror, running over to see iey body were missing, what leaky holes had appeared. And when she found nothing, after iing my ears and my nose and ting my fingers, she called me names, using words I had never heard before. But they sounded evil, the way she hurled and spat the words out. She yanked off my jacket, pulled off my pants. She said I smelled like "something evil this" and I looked like "something evil that." Her voice was trembling not so much with anger as with fear. "Your mother, now she will be glad to wash her hands of you," Amah said with great remorse. "She will banish us both to Kunming." And then I was truly frightened, because I had heard that Kunming was so far away nobody ever came to visit, and that it was a wild place surrounded by a stone forest ruled by monkeys. Amah left me g on the back of the boat, standing in my white cotton undergarments and tiger slippers.
I had truly expected my mother to e soon. I imagined her seeing my soiled clothes, the little flowers she had worked so hard to make. I thought she would e to the back of the boat and se in her gentle way. But she did not e. Oh, once I heard some footsteps, but I saw only the fay half-sisters pressed to the door window. They looked at me wide-eyed, poio me, and then laughed and scampered off.
The water had turned a deep golden color, and then red, purple, and finally black. The sky had darkened and red lantern lights started to glow all over the lake. I could hear people talking and laughing, some voices from the front of our boat, some from other boats o us. And then I heard the wooden kit door banging open and shut and the air filled with good rich smells. The voices from the pavilion cried in happy disbelief, "Ai! Look at this! And this!" I was hungry to be there.
I listeo their ba while dangling my legs over the back. And although it was night, it was bright outside. I could see my refley legs, my hands leaning on the edge, and my face. And above my head, I saw why it was sht. In the dark water, I could see the full moon, a moon so warm and big it looked like the sun. And I turned around so I could find the Moon Lady and tell her my secret wish. But right at that moment, everybody else must have seeoo. Because firecrackers exploded, and I fell into the water not even hearing my own splash.
I was surprised by the cool fort of the water, so that at first I was nhtened. It was like weightless sleep. And I expected Amah to e immediately and pick me up. But in the instant that I began to choke, I knew she would not e. I thrashed my arms and legs uhe water. The sharp water had swum up my nose, into my throat and eyes, and this made me thrash even harder. "Amah!" I tried to cry and I was so angry at her for abandoning me, for making me wait and suffer unnecessarily. And then a dark shape brushed by me and I k was one of the Five Evils, a swimming snake.
It ed around me and squeezed my body like a spohen tossed me into the choking air—and I fell headlong into a rope filled with writhing fish. Water gushed out of my throat, so that now I was choking and wailing.
When I turned my head, I saw four shadows, with the moon in back of them. A dripping figure was climbing into the boat. "Is it too small? Should we throw it back? Or is it worth some money?" said the dripping man, panting. And the others laughed. I became quiet. I knew who these people were. When Amah and I passed people like these ireets, she would put her hands over my eyes and ears.
"Stop now," scolded the woman in the boat, "youve frightened her. She thinks were brigands whoing to sell her for a slave." And then she said in a gentle voice, "Where are you from, little sister?"
The dripping ma down and looked at me. "Oh, a little girl. Not a fish!"
"Not a fish! Not a fish!" murmured the others, chug.
I began to shiver, too scared to cry. The air smelled dangerous, the sharp odors of gunpowder and fish.
"Do not pay any attention to them," said the woman. "Are you from another fishing boat? Whie? Do not be afraid. Point."
Out oer I saw rowboats and pedal boats and sailboats, and fishing boats like this one, with a long bow and small house in the middle. I looked hard, my heart beating fast.
"There!" I said, and poio a floating pavilion filled with laughing people and lanterns. "There! There!" And I began to cry, desperate to reach my family and be forted. The fishing boat glided swiftly over, toward the good cooking smells.
"E!" called the to the boat. "Have you lost a little girl, a girl who fell ier?"
There were some shouts from the floating pavilion, and I straio see faah, Baba, Mama. People were crowded on one side of the pavilion, leaning over, pointing, looking into our boat. All strangers, laughing red faces, loud voices. Where was Amah? Why did my mother not e? A little girl pushed her way through some legs.
"Thats not me!" she cried. "Im here. I didnt fall ier." The people in the boat roared with laughter and turned away.
"Little sister, you were mistaken," said the woman as the fishing boat glided away. I said nothing. I began to shiver again. I had seen nobody who cared that I was missing. I looked out over the water at the hundreds of dang lanterns. Firecrackers were exploding and I could hear more people laughing. The farther we glided, the bigger the world became. And I now felt I was lost forever.
The woman tio stare at me. My braid was unfurled. My undergarments were wet and gray. I had lost my slippers and was barefoot.
"What shall we do?" said one of the men quietly. "Nobody to claim her."
"Maybe she is a beggar girl," said one of the men. "Look at her clothes. She is one of those children who ride the flimsy rafts to beg for money."
I was filled with terror. Maybe this was true. I had turned into a beggar girl, lost without my family.
"Anh! Dont you have eyes?" said the woman crossly. "Look at her skin, too pale. And her feet, the bottoms are soft."
"Put her on the shore, then," said the man. "If she truly has a family, they will look for her there."
"Such a night!" sighed another man. "Always someone falling in on holiday nights. Drunkes and little children. Lucky she didnt drown." They chatted like this, bad forth, moving slowly toward shore. One man pushed the boat with a long bamboo pole and we glided between other boats. When we reached the dock, the man who had fished me out of the water lifted me out of the boat with his fishy-smelling hands.
"Be careful ime, little sister," called the woman as their boat glided away.
On the dock, with the bright moon behind me, I once again saw my shadow. It was shorter this time, shrunken and wild-looking. We ran together over to some bushes along a walkway and hid. In this hiding place I９９lｉｂ? could hear people talking as they walked by. I could hear frogs and crickets. And then—flutes and tinkling cymbals, a sounding gong and drums!
I looked through the branches of the bushes and in front I could see a crowd of people and, above them, a stage holding up the moon. A young man burst out from the side of a stage and told the crowd, "And now the Moon Lady will e and tell her sad tale to you, in a shadow play, classically sung."
The Moon Lady! I thought, and the very sound of those magic words made me fet my troubles. I heard more cymbals and gongs and then a shadow of a peared against the moon. Her hair was undone and she was bing it. She began to speak. Such a sweet, wailing voice!
"My fate and my penance," she began to lament, pulling her long fihrough her hair, "to live here on the moon, while my husband lives on the sun. So that each day and eaight, we pass each other, never seeing one another, except this one evening, the night of the mid-autumn moon."
The oved closer. The Moon Lady plucked her lute and began her singing tale.
Oher side of the moon I saw the silhouette of a man appear. The Moon Lady held her arms out to embrace him—"O! Hou Yi, my husband, Master Archer of the Skies!" she sang. But her husband did not seem to notice her. He was gazing at the sky. And as the sky grew brighter, his mouth began to open wide—in horror or delight, I could not tell.
The Moon Lady clutched her throat and fell into a heap, g, "The drought of ten suns in the eastern sky!" And just as she sang this, the Master Archer pointed his magic arrows and shot down nine suns which burst open with blood. "Sinking into a simmering sea!" she sang happily, and I could hear these suns sizzling and crag ih.
And now a fairy—the Queen Mother of the Western Skies!—was flying toward the Master Archer. She opened a box and held up a glowing ball—no, not a baby sun but a magic peach, the peach of everlasting life! I could see the Moon Lady pretending to be busy with her embroidery, but she was watg her husband. She saw him hide the pea a box. And then the Master Archer raised his bow and vowed to fast for oo show he had the patieo live forever. And after he ran off, the Moon Lady wasted not one moment to find the pead eat it!
As soon as she tasted it, she began to rise, then fly—not like the Queen Mother—but like a dragonfly with broken wings. "Flung from this earth by my own wantonness!" she cried just as her husband dashed bae, shouting, "Thief! Life-stealing wife!" He picked up his bow, aimed an arrow at his wife and—with the rumblings of a gong, the sky went black.
Wyah! Wyah! The sad lute music began again as the sky oage lightened. And there stood the poor lady against a moon as bright as the sun. Her hair was now so long it swept the floor, wiping up her tears. Ay had passed since she last saw her husband, for this was her fate: to stay lost on the moon, forever seeking her own selfish wishes.
"For woman is yin," she cried sadly, "the darkness within, where untem.pered passions lie. And man is yang, bright truth lighting our minds."
At the end of her singing tale, I was g, shaking with despair. Even though I did not uand her eory, I uood her grief. In one small moment, we had both lost the world, and there was no way to get it back.
A gong sounded, and the Moon Lady bowed her head and looked sereo the side. The crowd clapped vigorously. And now the same young man as before came out oage and announced, "Wait, everybody! The Moon Lady has seo grant o wish to each person here…." The crowd stirred with excitement, people murmuring in high voices. "For a small moary donation…" tihe young man. And the crowd laughed and groahen began to disperse. The young man shouted, "A once-a-year opportunity!" But nobody was listening to him, except my shadow and me in the bushes.
"I have a wish! I have one!" I shouted as I ran forward in my bare feet. But the young man paid no attention to me and walked off the stage. I kept running toward the moon to tell the Moon Lady what I wanted, because now I knew what my wish was. I darted fast as a lizard behind the stage, to the other side of the moon.
I saw her, standing still for just a moment. She was beautiful, ablaze with the light from a dozen kerosene lamps. And then she shook her long shadowy tresses and began to walk doweps.
"I have a wish," I said in a whisper, and still she did not hear me. So I walked closer yet, until I could see the face of the Moon Lady: shrunken cheeks, a broad oily nose, large glarih, aained eyes. A face so tired that she wearily pulled off her hair, her long gown fell from her shoulders. And as the secret wish fell from my lips, the Moon Lady looked at me and became a man.
For many years, I could not remember what I wahat night from the Moon Lady, or how it was that I was found again by my family. Both of these things seemed an illusion to me, a wish grahat could not be trusted. And so even though I was found—later that night after Amah, Baba, Uncle, and the others shouted for me along the waterway—I never believed my family found the same girl.
And then, over the years, I fot the rest of what happehat day: the pitiful story the Moon Lady sang, the pavilion boat, the bird with the ring on its neck, the tiny flowers blooming on my sleeve, the burning of the Five Evils.
But now that I am old, moving every year closer to the end of my life, I also feel closer to the beginning. And I remember everything that happehat day because it has happened many times in my life. The same innoce, trust, alessness, the wonder, fear, and loneliness. How I lost myself.
I remember all these things. And tonight, on the fifteenth day of the eighth moon, I also remember what I asked the Moon Lady so long ago. I wished to be found.
The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates
"Do not ride your bicycle around the er," the mother had told.. the daughter when she was seven.
"Why not!" protested the girl.
"Because then I ot see you and you will fall down and cry and I will not hear you."
"How do you know Ill fall?" whihe girl.
"It is in a book, The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates, all the bad things that happen to you outside the prote of this house."
"I dont believe you. Let me see the book."
"It is written in ese. You ot uand it. That is why you must listen to me."
"What are they, then?&q>９9ｌib?uot; the girl demanded. "Tell me the twenty-six bad things."
But the mother sat knitti?ng in silence.
"What twenty-six!" shouted the girl.
The mother still did not answer her.
"You t tell me because you dont know! You dont know anything!" And the girl ran outside, jumped on her bicycle, and in her hurry to get away, she fell before she even reached the er.
Rules of the Game-1
Waverly Jong
I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others, aually, though her of us k at the time, chess games.
"Bite back your tongue," scolded my mother when I cried loudly, yanking her hand toward the store that sold bags of salted plums. At home, she said, "Wise guy, he not go against wind. In ese we say, e from South, blow with wind—poom!—North will follow. Stro wind ot be seen."
The week I bit back my tongue as we ehe store with the forbidden dies. When my mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rad put it on the ter with the rest of the items.
My mother imparted her daily truths so she could help my older brothers and me rise above our circumstances. We lived in San Franciscos atown. Like most of the other ese children who played in the back alleys of restaurants and curio shops, I didnt think we were poor. My bowl was always full, three five-course meals every day, beginning with a soup full of mysterious things I didnt want to know the names of.
We lived on Waverly Place, in a warm, , two-bedroom flat that sat above a small ese bakery specializing in steamed pastries and dim sum. In the early m, when the alley was still quiet, I could smell fragrant red beans as they were cooked down to a pasty sweetness. By daybreak, our flat was heavy with the odor of fried sesame balls and sweet curried chi crests. From my bed, I would listen as my father got ready for work, then locked the door behind him, owo-three clicks.
At the end of our two-block alley was a small sandlot playground with swings and slides well-shined down the middle with use. The play area was bordered by wood-slat benches where old-try people sat crag roasted watermelon seeds with their goldeh and scattering the husks to an impatient gathering of gurgling pigeons. The best playground, however, was the dark alley itself. It was crammed with daily mysteries and adventures. My brothers and I would peer into the medial herb shop, watg old Li dole out onto a stiff sheet of white paper the right amount of i shells, saffron-colored seeds, and pu leaves for his ailing ers. It was said that he once cured a woman dying of an aral curse that had eluded the best of Ameri doctors. o the pharmacy rinter who specialized in gold-embossed wedding invitations aive red banners.
Farther dowreet ing Yuen Fish Market. The front window displayed a tank crowded with doomed fish and turtles struggling to gain footing on the slimy green-tiled sides. A hand-written sign informed tourists, "Within this store, is all for food, not for pet." Ihe butchers with their blood-stained white smocks deftly gutted the fish while ers cried out their orders and shouted, "Give me your freshest," On less crowded market days, we would ihe crates of live frogs and crabs which we were warned not to poke, boxes of dried cuttlefish, and row upon row of iced prawns, squid, and slippery fish. The sanddabs made me shiver each time; their eyes lay on one flattened side and reminded me of my mothers story of a careless girl who ran into a crowded street and was crushed by a cab. "Was smash flat," reported my mother.
At the er of the alley was Hong Sings, a four-table caf?with a recessed stairwell in front that led to a door marked "Tradesmen." My brothers and I believed the bad people emerged from this door at night. Tourists never went to Hong Sings, sihe menu rinted only in ese. A Caucasian man with a big camera once posed me and my playmates in front of the restaurant. He had us move to the side of the picture window so the photo would capture the roasted duck with its head dangling from a juice-covered rope. After he took the picture, I told him he should go into Hong Sings a dinner. When he smiled and asked me what they served, I shouted, "Guts and ducks feet and octopus gizzards!" Then I ran off with my friends, shrieking with laughter as we scampered across the alley and hid iryway grotto of the a Gem pany, my heart pounding with hope that he would chase us.
My mother named me after the street that we lived on: Waverly Place Jong, my official name for important Ameri dots. But my family called me Meimei, "Little Sister." I was the you, the only daughter. Each m before sy mother would twist and yank on my thick black hair until she had formed two tightly wound pigtails. One day, as she struggled to weave a hard-toothed b through my disobedient hair, I had a sly thought.
I asked her, "Ma, what is ese torture?" My mother shook her head. A bobby pin was wedged between her lips. She wetted her palm and smoothed the hair above my ear, then pushed the pin in so that it nicked sharply against my scalp.
"Who say this word?" she asked without a trace of knowing how wicked I was being. I shrugged my shoulders and said, "Some boy in my class said ese people do ese torture."
"ese people do many things," she said simply. "ese people do business, do medie, do painting. Not lazy like Ameri people. We do torture. Best torture."
My older brother Vi was the one who actually got the chess set. We had goo the annual Christmas party held at the First ese Baptist Church at the end of the alley. The missionary ladies had put together a Santa bag of gifts donated by members of another churone of the gifts had names ohere were separate sacks for boys and girls of different ages.
One of the ese parishioners had donned a Santa Claus e and a stiff paper beard with cotton balls glued to it. I think the only children who thought he was the real thioo young to know that Santa Claus was not ese. When my turn came up, the Santa man asked me how old I was. I thought it was a trick question; I was seven acc to the Ameri formula a by the ese dar. I said I was born on March 17, 1951. That seemed to satisfy him. He then solemnly asked if I had been a very, very good girl this year and did I believe in Jesus Christ and obey my parents. I khe only ao that. I nodded back with equal solemnity.
Having watched the other children opening their gifts, I already khat the big gifts were not necessarily the ones. One girl my age got a large c book of biblical characters, while a less greedy girl who selected a smaller box received a glass vial of laveoilet water. The sound of the box was also important. A ten-year-old boy had chosen a box that jangled when he shook it. It was a tin globe of the world with a slit for iing money. He must have thought it was full of dimes and nickels, because when he saw that it had just ten pennies, his face fell with sudisguised disappoihat his mother slapped the side of his head and led him out of the church hall, apologizing to the crowd for her son who had such bad manners he couldnt appreciate such a fine gift.
As I peered into the sack, I quickly fihe remaining presents, testing their weight, imagining what they tained. I chose a heavy, pae that was ed in shiny silver foil and a red satin ribbon. It was a twelve-pack of Life Savers and I spent the rest of the party arranging and rearranging the dy tubes in the order of my favorites. My brother Winston chose wisely as well. His present turned out to be a box of intricate plastic parts; the instrus on the box proclaimed that when they were properly assembled he would have an authentiiature replica of a World War II submarine.
Vi got the chess set, which would have been a very det present to get at a church Christmas party, except it was obviously used and, as we discovered later, it was missing a black pawn and a white knight. My mraciously thahe unknown beor, saying, "Too good. Cost too much." At which point, an old lady with fine white, wispy hair oward our family and said with a whistling whisper, "Merry, merry Christmas."
Whe home, my mother told Vio throw the chess set away. "She not want it. We not want it," she said, tossing her head stiffly to the side with a tight, proud smile. My brothers had deaf ears. They were already lining up the chess pieces and reading from the dog-eared instru book.
I watched Vi and Winston play during Christmas week. The chess board seemed to hold elaborate secrets waiting to be untahe chessmen were more powerful than Old Lis magic herbs that cured aral curses. And my brothers wore such serious faces that I was sure something was at stake that was greater than avoiding the tradesmens door to Hong Sings.
"Let me! Let me!" I begged between games when one brother or the other would sit back with a deep sigh of relief and victory, the other annoyed, uo let go of the oute. Vi at first refused to let me play, but when I offered my Life Savers as replats for the buttons that filled in for the missing pieces, he relented. He chose the flavors: wild cherry for the black paeppermint for the white knight. Winner could eat both.
As our mother sprinkled flour and rolled out small doughy circles for the steamed dumplings that would be our dihat night, Vi explaihe rules, pointing to each piece. "You have sixteen pieces and so do I. One king and queen, two bishops, two knights, two castles, a pawns. The pawns only move forward oep, except on the first move. Then they move two. But they only take men by moving crossways like this, except in the beginning, when you move ahead and take another pawn."
"Why?" I asked as I moved my pawn. "Why t they move more steps?"
"Because theyre pawns," he said.
"But why do they go crossways to take other men. Why arent there any women and children?"
"Why is the sky blue? Why must you always ask stupid questions?" asked Vi. "This is a game. These are the rules. I didnt make them up. See. Here. In the book." He jabbed a page with a pawn in his hand. "Pawn. P-A-W-N. Pawn. Read it yourself."
My mother patted the flour off her hands. "Let me see book," she said quietly. She sed the pages quickly, not reading the fn English symbols, seeming to search deliberately for nothing in particular.
"This Ameri rules," she cluded at last. "Every time people e out from fn try, must know rules. You not know, judge say, Too bad, go back. They not telling you why so you use their way go forward. They say, Dont know why, you find out yourself. But they knowing all the time. Better you take it, find out why yourself." She tossed her head back with a satisfied smile.
I found out about all the whys later. I read the rules and looked up all the big words in a diary. I borrowed books from the atown library. I studied each chess piece, trying to absorb the power each tained.
I learned about opening moves and why its important to trol the ter early on; the shortest distaween two points is straight down the middle. I learned about the middle game and why tactics between two adversaries are like clashing ideas; the one who plays better has the clearest plans for both attack?9９lｉｂ?ing aing out of traps. I learned why it is essential in the endgame to have fht, a mathematical uanding of all possible moves, and patience; all weaknesses and advantages bee evident to a strong adversary and are obscured to a tiring oppo. I discovered that for the whole game one must gather invisible strengths ahe endgame before the game begins.
I also found out why I should never reveal "why" to others. A little knowledge withheld is a great advantage one should store for future use. That is the power of chess. It is a game of secrets in whiust show and ell.
I loved the secrets I found within the sixty-four blad white squares. I carefully drew a handmade chessboard and pi to the wall o my bed, where at night I would stare for hours at imaginary battles. Soon I no longer lost any games or Life Savers, but I lost my adversaries. Winston and Vi decided they were more ied in roaming the streets after school in their Hopalong Cassidy cowboy hats.
On a cold spring afternoon, while walking home from school, I detoured through the playground at the end of our alley. I saw a group of old men, two seated across a folding table playing a game of chess, others smoking pipes, eatis, and watg. I ran home and grabbed Vis chess set, which was bound in a cardboard box with rubber bands. I also carefully selected two prized rolls of Life Savers. I came back to the park and approached a man who was the game.
"Want to play?" I asked him. His face widened with surprise and he grinned as he looked at the box under my arm.
"Little sister, been a long time since I play with dolls," he said, smiling benevolently. I quickly put the box dowo him on the bend displayed my retort.
Lau Po, as he allowed me to call him, turned out to be a much better player than my brothers. I lost many games and many Life Savers. But over the weeks, with each diminishing roll of dies, I added new secrets. Lau Po gave me the he Double Attack from the East a Shores. Throwing Stones on the Drowning Man. The Suddeing of the . The Surprise from the Sleeping Guard. The Humble Servant Who Kills the King. Sand in the Eyes of Advang Forces. A Double Killing Without Blood.
There were also the fine points of chess etiquette. Keep captured men i rows, as well-tended prisoners. Never announce "Check" with vanity, lest someoh an unseen sword slit your throat. Never hurl pieces into the sandbox after you have lost a game, because then you must find them again, by yourself, after apologizing to all around you. By the end of the summer, Lau Po had taught me all he knew, and I had bee a better chess player.
A small weekend crowd of ese people and tourists would gather as I played aed my oppos one by one. My mother would join the crowds during these outdoor exhibition games. She sat proudly on the bench, telling my admirers with proper ese humility, "Is luck."
A man who watched me play in the park suggested that my mother allow me to play in local chess tours. My mother smiled graciously, an ahat meant nothing. I desperately wao go, but I bit back my tongue. I knew she would not let me play among strangers. So as we walked home I said in a small voice that I didnt want to play in the local tour. They would have Ameri rules. If I lost, I would bring shame on my family.
"Is shame you fall down nobody push you," said my mother.
During my first tour, my mother sat with me in the front row as I waited for my turn. I frequently bounced my legs to unstick them from the etal seat of the folding chair. When my name was called, I leapt up. My mother uned something in her lap. It was her g, a small tablet of red jade which held the suns fire. "Is luck," she whispered, and tucked it into my dress pocket. I turo my oppo, a fifteen-year-old boy from Oakland. He looked at me, wrinkling his nose.
As I began to play, the boy disappeared, the color ran out of the room, and I saw only my white pieces and his blaes waiting oher side. A light wind began blowing past my ears. It whispered secrets only I could hear.
"Blow from the South," it murmured. "The wind leaves no trail." I saw a clear path, the traps to avoid. The crowd rustled. "Shhh! Shhh!" said the ers of the room. The wind blew stronger. "Throw sand from the East to distract him." The knight came forward ready for the sacrifice. The wind hissed, louder and louder. "Blow, blow, blow. He ot see. He is blind now. Make him lean away from the wind so he is easier to knock down."
"Check," I said, as the wind roared with laughter. The wind died down to little puffs, my owh.
My mother placed my first trophy o a new plastic chess set that the neighborhood Tao society had given to me. As she wiped each piece with a soft cloth, she said, "ime win more, lose less."
"Ma, its not hoieces you lose," I said. "Sometimes you o lose pieces to get ahead."
"Better to lose less, see if you really need."
At the our, I won again, but it was my mother who wore the triumphant grin.
"Lost eight piece this time. Last time was eleven. What I tell you? Better off lose less!" I was annoyed, but I couldnt say anything.
I attended more tours, eae farther away from home. I won all games, in all divisions. The ese bakery downstairs from our flat displayed my growing colle of trophies in its window, amidst the dust-covered cakes that were never picked up. The day after I won an important regional tour, the window encased a fresh sheet cake with whipped-cream frosting and red script saying, "gratulations, Waverly Jong, atown Chess Champion." Soon after that, a flower shop, headstone engraver, and funeral parlor offered to sponsor me in national tours. Thats when my mother decided I no longer had to do the dishes. Winston and Vi had to do my chores.
"Why does she get to play and we do all the work," plained Vi.
"Is new Ameri rules," said my mother. "Meimei play, squeeze all her brains out for win chess. You play, worth squeeze towel."
By my ninth birthday, I was a national chess champion. I was still some 429 points away from grand-master status, but I was touted as the Great Ameri Hope, a child prodigy and a girl to boot. They ran a photo of me in Life magazio a quote in which Bobby Fischer said, "There will never be a woman grand master." "Your move, Bobby," said the caption.
The day they took the magazine picture I wore ly plaited braids clipped with plastic barrettes trimmed with rhiones. I laying in a large high school auditorium that echoed with phlegmy coughs and the squeaky rubber knobs of chair legs sliding across freshly waxed wooden floors. Seated across from me was an Ameri man, about the same age as Lau Po, maybe fifty. I remember that his sweaty brow seemed to weep at my every move. He wore a dark, malodorous suit. One of his pockets was stuffed with a great white kerchief on which he wiped his palm before sweeping his hand over the chosen chess piece with great flourish.
In my crisp pink-and-white dress with scratchy lace at the neck, one of two my mother had sewn for these special occasions, I would clasp my hands under my , the delicate points of my elbows poised lightly oable in the manner my mother had shown me for posing for the press. I would swing my pateher shoes bad forth like an impatient child riding on a school bus. Then I would pause, su my lips, twirl my chosen pie midair as if undecided, and then firmly plant it in its hreatening place, with a triumphant smile thrown back at my oppo food measure.
I no longer played in the alley of Waverly Place. I never visited the playground where the pigeons and old men gathered. I went to school, then directly home to learn new chess secrets, cleverly cealed advantages, more escape routes.
But I found it difficult to trate at home. My mother had a habit of standing over me while I plotted out my games. I think she thought of herself as my protective ally. Her lips would be sealed tight, and after each move I made, a soft "Hmmmmph" would escape from her nose.
"Ma, I t practice when you stand there like that," I said one day. She retreated to the kit and made loud noises with the pots and pans. When the crashing stopped, I could see out of the er of my eye that she was standing in the doorway. "Hmmmph!" Only this one came out of her tight throat.
My parents made many cessions to allow me to practice. Oime I plaihat the bedroom I shared was so noisy that I couldnt think. Thereafter, my brothers slept in a bed in the living room fag the street. I said I couldnt finish my rice; my head didnt wht when my stomach was too full. I left the table with half-finished bowls and nobody plained. But there was oy I couldnt avoid. I had to apany my mother on Saturday market days when I had no touro play. My mother would proudly walk with me, visiting many shops, buying very little. "This my daughter Wave-ly Jong," she said to whoever looked her way.
One day, after we left a shop I said under my breath, "I wish you wouldnt do that, telling everybody Im your daughter." My mother stopped walking. Crowds of people with heavy bags pushed past us on the sidewalk, bumping into first one shoulder, then another.
"Aiii-ya. So shame be with mother?" She grasped my hand even tighter as she glared at me.
I looked down. "Its not that, its just so obvious. Its just so embarrassing."
"Embarrass you be my daughter?" Her voice was crag with anger.
"Thats not what I meant. Thats not what I said."
"What you say?"
I k was a mistake to say anything more, but I heard my voice speaking. "Why do you have to use me to show off? If you want to show off, then why dont you learn to play chess."
My mothers eyes turned into dangerous black slits. She had no words for me, just sharp silence.
I felt the wind rushing around my hot ears. I jerked my hand out of my mothers tight grasp and spun around, knog into an old woman. Her bag of groceries spilled to the ground.
"Aii-ya! Stupid girl!" my mother and the woman cried. es and tin s careened down the sidewalk. As my mother stooped to help the old ick up the esg food, I took off.
I raced dowreet, dashiween people, not looking back as my mother screamed shrilly, "Meimei! Meimei!" I fled down an alley, past dark curtained shops and merts washing the grime off their windows. I sped into the sunlight, into a large street crowded with tourists examining tris and souvenirs. I ducked into another dark alley, down areet, up another alley. I ran until it hurt and I realized I had o go, that I was not running from anything. The alleys tained no escape routes.
My breath came out like angry smoke. It was cold. I sat down on an upturned plastic pail o a stapty boxes, cupping my with my hands, thinking hard. I imagined my mother, first walking briskly dowreet or another looking for me, then giving up aurning home to await my arrival. After two hours, I stood up on creaking legs and slowly walked home.
The alley was quiet and I could see the yellow lights shining from our flat like two tigers eyes in the night. I climbed the sixteeo the door, advang quietly up each so as not to make any warning sounds. I turhe knob; the door was locked. I heard a chair moving, quick steps, the locks turning—click! click! click!—and then the door opened.
"About time you got home," said Vi. "Boy, are you in trouble."
He slid back to the diable. On a platter were the remains of a large fish, its fleshy head still ected to bones swimming upstream in vain escape. Standing there waiting for my punishment, I heard my mother speak in a dry voice.
"We not ing this girl. This girl not have ing for us."
Nobody looked at me. Bone chopsticks ked against the insides of bowls beiied into hungry mouths.
I walked into my room, closed the door, and lay down on my bed. The room was dark, the ceiling filled with shadows from the diime lights of neighb flats.
In my head, I saw a chessboard with sixty-four blad white squares. Opposite me was my oppo, two angry black slits. She wore a triumphant smile. "Stro wind ot be seen," she said.
Her black men advanced across the plane, slowly marg to each successive level as a single unit. My white pieces screamed as they scurried and fell off the board one by one. As her men drew closer to my edge, I felt myself growing light. I rose up into the air and flew out the window. Higher and higher, above the alley, over the tops of tiled roofs, where I was gathered up by the wind and pushed up toward the night sky until everything below me disappeared and I was alone.
I closed my eyes and pondered my move.
The Voice from the Wall
Lena St. Clair
When I was little, my mother told me my great-grandfather had sentenced a beggar to die in the worst possible way, and that later the dead man came bad killed my great-grandfather. Either that, or he died of influenza one week later.
I used to play out the beggars last moments over and ain in my head. In my mind, I saw the executiorip off the mans shirt and lead him into the open yard. "This traitor," read the executioner, "is senteo die the death of a thousand cuts." But before he could even raise the sharp sword to whittle his life away, they found the beggars mind had already broken into a thousand pieces. A few days later, my great-grandfather looked up from his books and saw this same man looking like a smashed vase hastily put back together. "As the sword was cutting me down," said the ghost, "I thought this was the worst I would ever have to endure. But I was wrong. The worst is oher side." And the dead man embraced my great-grandfather with the jagged pieces of his arm and pulled him through the wall, to show him what he meant.
I once asked my mother how he really died. She said, "In bed, very quickly, after being sick for only two days."
"No, no, I meaher man. How was he killed? Did they slice off his skin first? Did they use a cleaver to chop up his bones? Did he scream and feel all ohousand cuts?"
"Annh! Why do you Ameris have only these morbid thoughts in your mind?" cried my mother in ese. "That man has been dead for almost seventy years. What does it matter how he died?"
I always thought it mattered, to know what is the worst possible thing that happen to you, to know how you avoid it, to not be drawn by the magic of the unspeakable. Because, even as a young child, I could sehe unspoken terrors that surrounded our house, the ohat chased my mother until she hid in a secret dark er of her mind. And still they found her. I watched, over the years, as they devoured her, piece by piece, until she disappeared and became a ghost.
As I remember it, the dark side of my mother sprang from the basement in our old house in Oakland. I was five and my mother tried to hide it from me. She barricaded the door with a wooden chair, secured it with a and two types of key locks. And it became so mysterious that I spent all my energies unraveling this door, until the day I was finally able to pry it open with my small fingers, only to immediately fall headlong into the dark chasm. And it was only after I stopped screaming—I had seen the blood of my nose on my mothers shoulder—only then did my mother tell me about the bad man who lived in the basement and why I should never open the dain. He had lived there for thousands of years, she said, and was so evil and hungry that had my mother not rescued me so quickly, this bad man would have planted five babies in me and theen us all in a six-course meal, tossing our bones on the dirty floor.
And after that I began to see terrible things. I saw these things with my ese eyes, the part of me I got from my mother. I saw devils dang feverishly beh a hole I had dug in the sandbox. I saw that lightning had eyes and searched to strike down little children. I saw a beetle wearing the face of a child, which I promptly squashed with the wheel of my tricycle. And when I became older, I could see things that Causasian girls at school did not. Monkey rings that would split in two and send a swinging child hurtling through space. Tether balls that could splash a girls head all over the playground in front of laughing friends.
I didnt tell anyone about the things I saw, not even my mother. Most people didnt know I was half ese, maybe because my last name is St. Clair. When people first saw me, they thought I looked like my father, English-Irish, big-boned and delicate at the same time. But if they looked really close, if they khat they were there, they could see the ese parts. Instead of having cheeks like my fathers sharp-edged points, mine were smooth as beach pebbles. I didnt have his straw-yellow hair or his white ski my c looked too pale, like something that was once darker and had faded in the sun.
And my eyes, my mave me my eyes, no eyelids, as if they were carved on a jack-o-lantern with two swift cuts of a short knife. I used to push my eyes in on the sides to make them rounder. Or Id open them very wide until I could see the white parts. But when I walked around the house like that, my father asked me why I looked so scared.
I have a photo of my mother with this same scared look. My father said the picture was taken when Ma was first released from Angel Island Immigration Station. She stayed there for three weeks, until they could process her papers aermine whether she was a War Bride, a Displaced Person, a Student, or the wife of a ese-Ameri citizen. My father said they didnt have rules for dealing with the ese wife of a Caucasian citizen. Somehow, in the end, they declared her a Displaced Person, lost in a sea of immigration categories.
My mother alked about her life in a, but my father said he saved her from a terrible life there, some tragedy she could not speak about. My father proudly named her in her immigration papers: Betty St. Clair, crossing out her given name of Gu Ying-ying. And the down the wrong birthyear, 1916 instead of 1914. So, with the sweep of a pen, my mother lost her name and became a Dragon instead of a Tiger.
In this picture you see why my mother looks displaced. She is clutg a large clam-shaped bag, as though someone might steal this from her as well if she is less watchful. She has on an ankle-length ese dress with modest vents at the side. And on top she is wearing a Westernized suit jacket, awkwardly stylish on my mothers small body, with its padded shoulders, wide lapels, and oversize cloth buttons. This was my mothers wedding dress, a gift from my father. In this outfit she looks as if she were her ing from noing to someplace. Her is bent down and you see the precise part in her hair, a white line drawn from above her left brow thehe black horizon of her head.
And even though her head is bowed, humble i, her eyes are staring up past the camera, wide open.
"Why does she look scared?" I asked my father.
And my father explained: It was only because he said "Cheese," and my mother was struggling to keep her eyes open until the flash went off, ten seds later.
My mother often looked this way, waiting for something to happen, wearing this scared look. Only later she lost the struggle to keep her eyes open.
"Dont look at her," said my mother as we walked through atown in Oakland. She had grabbed my hand and pulled me close to her body. And of course I looked. I saw a woman sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against a building. She was old and young at the same time, with dull eyes as though she had not slept for many years. And her feet and her hands—the tips were as black as if she had dipped them in India ink. But I khey were rotted.
"What did she do to herself?" I whispered to my mother.
"She met a bad man," said my mother. "She had a baby she didnt want."
And I khat was not true. I knew my mother made up anything to waro help me avoid some unknown danger. My mother saw danger ihing, even in other ese people. Where we lived and shopped, everyone spoke tonese lish. My mother was from Wushi, near Shanghai. So she spoke Mandarin and a little bit of English. My father, who spoke only a few ed ese expressions, insisted my mother learn English. So with him, she spoke in moods aures, looks and silences, and sometimes a bination of English punctuated by hesitations and ese frustration: "Shwo buchulai"—Words ot e out. So my father would put words in her mouth.
"I think Mom is trying to say shes tired," he would whisper when my mother became moody.
"I think shes sayihe best darn family in the try!" hed exclaim when she had cooked a wonderfully fragrant meal.
But with me, when we were alone, my mother would speak in ese, saying things my father could not possibly imagine. I could uand the words perfectly, but not the meanings. Ohought led to another without e.
"You must not walk in any dire but to school and bae," warned my mother when she decided I was old enough to walk by myself.
"Why?" I asked.
"You t uand these things," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because I havent put it in your mi."
"Why not?"
"Aii-ya! Such questions! Because it is too terrible to sider. A man grab you off the streets, sell you to someone else, make you have a baby. Then youll kill the baby. And when they find this baby in a garbage , then what be done? Youll go to jail, die there."
I khis was not a true answer. But I also made up lies to prevent bad things from happening iure. I often lied when I had to translate for her, the endless forms, instrus, notices from school, telephone calls. "Shemma yisz?"—What meaning?—she asked me when a man at a grocery store yelled at her for opening up jars to smell the insides. I was so embarrassed I told her that ese people were not allowed to shop there. When the school sent a notie about a polio va..ation, I told her the time and place, and added that all students were now required to use metal lunch boxes, sihey had discovered old paper bags carry polio germs.
"Were moving up in the world," my father proudly ann99lｉb?ouhis being the occasion of his promotion to sales supervisor of a clothing manufacturer. "Your mother is thrilled."
And we did move up, across the bay to San Francisd up a hill in North Beach, to an Italian neighborhood, where the sidewalk was so steep I had to lean into the slant to get home from school each day. I was ten and I was hopeful that we might be able to leave all the old fears behind in Oakland.
The apartment building was three stories high, tartments per floor. It had a renovated fa鏰de, a ret layer of white stucco topped with ected rows of metal fire-escape ladders. But i was old. The front door with its narroanes opened into a musty lobby that smelled of everybodys life mixed together. Everybody meant the names on the front door o their little buzzers: Anderson, Giordino, Hayman, Ricci, Sorci, and our . Clair. We lived on the middle floor, stuck between cooking smells that floated up a sounds that drifted down. My bedroom faced the street, and at night, in the dark, I could see in my mind another life. Cars struggling to climb the steep, fog-shrouded hill, gunning their deep engines and spinning their wheels. Loud, happy people, laughing, puffing, gasping: "Are we almost there?" A beagle scrambling to his feet to start his yipping yowl, answered a few seds later by fire truck sirens and an angry woman hissing, "Sammy! Bad dog! Hush now!" And with all this soothing predictability, I would soon fall asleep.
My mother was not happy with the apartment, but I didhat at first. When we moved in, she busied herself with gettiled, arranging the furniture, unpag dishes, hanging pictures on the wall. It took her about one week. And soon after that, when she and I were walking to the bus stop, she met a man who threw her off balance.
He was a red-faced ese man, wobbling down the sidewalk as if he were lost. His runny eyes saw us and he quickly stood up straight and threw out his arms, shouting, "I found you! Suzie Wong, girl of my dreams! Hah!" And with his arms and mouth wide opearted rushing toward us. My mother dropped my hand and covered her body with her arms as if she were naked, uo do anything else. In that moment as she let go, I started to scream, seeing this dangerous man lunging closer. I was still screaming after two laughing men grabbed this man and, shaking him, said, "Joe, stop it, for Chrissake. Youre sg that poor little girl and her maid."
The rest of the day—while riding on the bus, walking in and out of stores, shopping for our dinner—my mother trembled. She clutched my hand so tightly it hurt. And once whe go of my hand to take her wallet out of her purse at the cash register, I started to slip away to look at the dy. She grabbed my hand back so fast I k that instant how sorry she was that she had not protected me better.
As soon as we got home from grocery shopping, she began to put the s aables away. And then, as if something were not quite right, she removed the s from one shelf and switched them with the s on another. she walked briskly into the living room and moved a large round mirror from the wall fag the front door to a wall by the sofa.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She whispered something in ese about "things not being balanced," and I thought she meant how things looked, not how things felt. And thearted to move the larger pieces: the sofa, chairs, end tables, a ese scroll of goldfish.
"Whats going on here?" asked my father when he came home from work.
"Shes making it look better," I said.
And the day, when I came home from school, I saw she had again rearranged everything. Everything was in a different place. I could see that some terrible danger lay ahead.
"Why are you doing this?" I asked her, afraid she would give me a true answer.
But she whispered some ese nonsense instead: "When something goes against your nature, you are not in balahis house was built too steep, and a bad wind from the top blows all your strength back down the hill. So you ever get ahead. You are always rolling backward."
And thearted pointing to the walls and doors of the apartment. "See how narrow this doorway is, like a hat has been strangled. And the kit faces this toilet room, so all your worth is flushed away."
"But what does it mean? Whats going to happen if its not balanced?" I asked my mother.
My father explai to me later. "Your mother is just practig her ing instincts," he said. "All met it. Youll see when youre older."
I wondered why my father never worried. Was he blind? Why did my mother and I see something more?
And then a few days later, I found out that my father had been right all along. I came home from school, walked into my bedroom, and saw it. My mother had rearranged my room. My bed was no longer by the window but against a wall. And where my bed once was—now there stood a used crib. So the secret danger was a ballooning stomach, the soury mothers imbalance. My mother was going to have a baby.
"See," said my father as we both looked at the crib. "ing instincts. Heres the . And heres where the baby goes." He was so pleased with this imaginary baby in the crib. He didnt see what I later saw. My man to bump into things, into table edges as if she fot her stomach tained a baby, as if she were headed for trouble instead. She did not speak of the joys of having a new baby; she talked about a heaviness around her, about things being out of balanot in harmony with one another. So I worried about that baby, that it was stuewhere between my mothers stomad this crib in my room.
With my bed against the wall, the nighttime life of my imagination ged. Instead of street sounds, I began to hear voices ing from the wall, from the apartme door. The front-door buzzer said a family called the Sorcis lived there.
That first night I heard the muffled sound of someone shouting. A woman? A girl? I flattened my ear against the wall and heard a womans angry voice, then ahe higher voice of a girl shouting back. And now, the voices turoward me, like fire sirens turning onto our street, and I could hear the accusations fading in and out:Who am I to say!…Why do you keep buggihe out and stay out!…rather die rather be dead!…Why doncha then!
Then I heard scraping sounds, slamming, pushing and shouts and then whack! whack! whack! Someone was killing. Someone was being killed. Screams and shouts, a mother had a sword high above a girls head and was starting to slice her life away, first a braid, then her scalp, an eyebrow, a toe, a thumb, the point of her cheek, the slant of her nose, until there was nothi, no sounds.
I lay back against my pillow, my heart pounding at what I had just witnessed with my ears and my imagination. A girl had just been killed. I hadnt been able to stop myself from listening. I wasnt able to stop what happehe horror of it all.
But the night, the girl came back to life with more screams, more beating, her life once more in peril. And so it tinued, night after night, a voice pressing against my wall tellihat this was the worst possible thing that could happen: the terror of not knowing when it would ever stop.
Sometimes I heard this loud family across the hallway that separated our tartment doors. Their apartment was by the stairs going up to the third floor. Ours was by the stairs going down to the lobby.
"You break ys sliding down that banister, Im gonna break your neck," a woman shouted. Her warnings were followed by the sounds of feet stomping oairs. "And dont fet to pick up Pops suits!"
I kheir terrible life so intimately that I was startled by the immediacy of seeing her in person for the first time. I ulling the front door shut while balang an armload of books. And when I turned around, I saw her ing toward me just a few feet away and I shrieked and dropped everything. She snickered and I knew who she was, this tall girl whom I guessed to be about twelve, two years older than I was. Then she bolted dowairs and I quickly gathered up my books and followed her, careful to walk oher side of the street.
She didnt seem like a girl who had been killed a huimes. I saw no traces of blood-stained clothes; she wore a crisp white blouse, a blue cardigaer, and a blue-greeed skirt. In fact, as I watched her, she seemed quite happy, her two brown braids boung jauntily in rhythm to her walk. And then, as if she khat I was thinking about her, she turned her head. She gave me a scowl and quickly ducked down a side street and walked out of my sight.
Every time I saw her after that, I would pretend to look down, busy rearranging my books or the buttons on my sweater, guilty that I knew everything about her.
My parents friends Auntie Su and Uncle ing picked me up at school one day and took me to the hospital to see my mother. I khis was serious because everything they said was unnecessary but spoken with solemn importance.
"It is now four oclock," said Uncle ing, looking at his watch.
"The bus is never on time," said Auntie Su.
When I visited my mother in the hospital, she seemed half asleep, tossing bad forth. And then her eyes popped open, staring at the ceiling.
"My fault, my fault. I khis before it happened," she babbled. "I did nothing to prevent it."
"Betty darling, Betty darling," said my father frantically. But my mother kept shouting these accusations to herself. She grabbed my hand and I realized her whole body was shaking. And then she looked at me, in a strange way, as if she were begging me for her life, as if I could pardon her. She was mumbling in ese.
"Lena, whats she saying?" cried my father. For once, he had no words to put in my mothers mouth.
And for once, I had no ready answer. It struck me that the worst possible thing had happehat what she had been fearing had e true. They were no longer warnings. And so I listened.
"When the baby was ready to be born," she murmured, "I could already hear him screaming inside my womb. His little fingers, they were ging to stay inside. But the he doctor, they said to push him out, make him e. And when his head popped out, the nurses cried, His eyes are wide open! He sees everything! Then his body slipped out and he lay oable, steaming with life.
"When I looked at him, I saw right away. His tiny legs, his small arms, his thin neck, and then a large head so terrible I could not stop looking at it. This babys eyes were open and his head—it en too! I could see all the way back, to where his thoughts were supposed to be, and there was nothing there. No brain, the doctor shouted! His head is just ay eggshell!
"And then this baby, maybe he heard us, his large head seemed to fill with hot air and rise up from the table. The head turo one side, then to the other. It looked right through me. I knew he could see everything inside me. How I had given no thought to killing my other son! How I had given no thought to having this baby!"
I could not tell my father what she had said. He was so sad already with this empty crib in his mind. How could I tell him she was crazy?
So this is what I translated for him: "She says we must all think very hard about having another baby. She says she hopes this baby is very happy oher side. And she thinks we should leave now and go have dinner."
After the baby died, my mother fell apart, not all at once, but piece by piece, like plates falling off a shelf one by one. I never knew when it would happen, so I became nervous all the time, waiting.
Sometimes she would start to make dinner, but would stop halfway, the water running full steam in the sink, her knife poised in the air over half-chopped vegetables, silent, tears flowing. And sometimes wed be eating and we would have to stop and put our forks down because she had dropped her fato her hands and was saying. "Mei gwansyi"—It doesnt matter. My father would just sit there, trying to figure out what it was that didnt matter this much. And I would leave the table, knowing it would happen again, always a ime.
My father seemed to fall apart in a different way. He tried to make things better. But it was as if he were running to catch things before they fell, only he would fall before he could catything.
"Shes just tired," he explaio me when we were eating di the Gold Spike, just the two of us, because my mother was lying like a statue on her bed. I knew he was thinking about her because he had this worried face, staring at his dinner plate as if it were filled with worms instead of spaghetti.
At home, my mother looked at everything around her with empty eyes. My father would e home from work, patting my head, saying, "Hows my big girl," but always looking past me, toward my mother. I had such fears inside, not in my head but in my stomach. I could no longer see what was so scary, but I could feel it. I could feel every little movement in our silent house. And at night, I could feel the crashing loud fights oher side of my bedroom wall, this girl beien to death. In bed, with the bla edge lying ay neck, I used to wonder which was worse, our side or theirs? And after thinking about this for a while, after feeling sorry for myself, it forted me somewhat to think that this girl door had a more unhappy life.
But one night after dinner our doorbell rang. This was curious, because usually people rang the buzzer downstairs first.
"Lena, could you see who it is?" called my father from the kit. He was doing the dishes. My mother was lying in bed. My mother was now always "resting" and it was as if she had died and bee a living ghost.
I opehe door cautiously, then swung it wide open with surprise. It was the girl from door. I stared at her with undisguised amazement. She was smiling back at me, and she looked ruffled, as if she had fallen out of bed with her clothes on.
"Who is it?" called my father.
"Its door!" I shouted to my father. "Its…"
"Teresa," she offered quickly.
"Its Teresa!" I yelled bay father.
"Invite her in," my father said at almost the same moment that Teresa squeezed past me and into our apartment. Without being invited, she started walking toward my bedroom. I closed the front door and followed her two brown braids that were boung like whips beating the back of a horse.
She walked right over to my window and began to open it. "What are you doing?" I cried. She sat on the window ledge, looked out oreet. And then she looked at me and started to giggle. I sat down on my bed watg her, waiting for her to stop, feeling the cold air blow in from the dark opening.
"Whats so funny?" I finally said. It occurred to me that perhaps she was laughing at me, at my life. Maybe she had listehrough the wall and heard nothing, the stagnant silence of our unhappy house.
"Why are you laughing?" I demanded.
"My mother kicked me out,&q99ｌｉｂ?t>uot; she finally said. She talked with a swagger, seeming to be proud of this fact. And then she snickered a little and said, "We had this fight and she pushed me out the door and locked it. So now she thinks Im going to wait outside the door until Im sorry enough to apologize. But Im not going to."
"Then what are you going to do?" I asked breathlessly, certain that her mother would kill her food this time.
"Im going to use your fire escape to climb bato my bedroom," she whispered back. "And shes going to wait. And whes worried, shell open the front door. Only I wohere! Ill be in my bedroom, in bed." She giggled again.
"Wont she be mad when she finds you?"
"Nah, shell just be glad Im not dead or something. Oh, shell pretend to be mad, sort of. We do this kind of stuff all the time." And then she slipped through my window and soundlessly made her way bae.
I stared at the open window for a long time, w about her. How could she go back? Didnt she see how terrible her life was? Didnt she reize it would op?
I lay down on my bed waiting to hear the screams and shouts. And late at night I was still awake when I heard the loud voiext door. Mrs. Sorci was shouting and g, You stupida girl. You almost gave me a heart attack. And Teresa was yelling back, I coulda been killed. I almost fell and broke my neck. And then I heard them laughing and g, g and laughing, shouting with love.
I was stunned. I could almost see them hugging and kissing one another. I was g for joy with them, because I had been wrong.
And in my memory I still feel the hope that beat ihat night. I g to this hope, day after day, night after night, year after year. I would watch my mother lying in her bed, babbling to herself as she sat on the sofa. A I khat this, the worst possible thing, would one day stop. I still saw bad things in my mind, but now I found ways to ge them. I still heard Mrs. Sord Teresa having terrible fights, but I saw something else.
I saw a girl plaining that the pain of not being seen was unbearable. I saw the mother lying in bed in her long flowing robes. Then the girl pulled out a sharp sword and told her mother, "Then you must die the death of a thousand cuts. It is the only way to save you."
The mother accepted this and closed her eyes. The sword came down and sliced bad forth, up and down, whish! whish! whish! And the mother screamed and shouted, cried out in terror and pain. But when she opened her eyes, she saw no blood, no shredded flesh.
The girl said, "Do you see now?"
The mother nodded: "Now I have perfederstanding. I have already experiehe worst. After this, there is no worst possible thing."
And the daughter said, "Now you must e back, to the other side. Then you see why you were wrong."
And the girl grabbed her mothers hand and pulled her through the wall.
Half and Half
Rose Hsu Jordan
As proof of her faith, my mother used to carry a small leatherette Bible when she went to the First ese Baptist Church every Sunday. But later, after my mother lost her faith in God, that leatherette Bible wound up wedged under a too-short table leg, a way for her to correct the imbalances of life. Its been there for over twenty years.
My mother pretends that Bible isnt there. Whenever anyone asks her what its doing there, she says, a little too loudly, "Oh, this? I fot." But I know she sees it. My mother is not the best housekeeper in the world, and after all these years that Bible is still white.
Tonight Im watg my mother sweep uhe same kit table, something she does every night after dinner. She gently pokes her broom around the table leg propped up by the Bible. I watch her, sweep after sweep, waiting for the right moment to tell her about Ted ahat were getting divorced. When I tell her, I know shes going to say, "This ot be."
And when I say that it is certainly true, that our marriage is over, I know what else she will say: "Then you must save it."
And even though I know its hopeless—theres absolutely nothio save—Im afraid if I tell her that, shell still persuade me to try.
I think its ironic that my mother wants me to fight the divorce. Seventeen years ago she was chagrined when I started dating Ted. My older sisters had dated only ese boys from church befetting married.
Ted and I met in a politics of ecology class when he leaned over and offered to pay me two dollars for the last weeks notes. I refused the money and accepted a cup of coffee instead. This was during my sed semester at UC Berkeley, where I had enrolled as a liberal arts major and later ged to fis. Ted was in his third year in pre-med, his choice, he told me, ever since he dissected a fetal pig in the sixth grade.
I have to admit that what I initially found attractive in Ted were precisely the things that made him different from my brothers and the ese boys I had dated: his brashness; the assuredness in which he asked for things and expected to get them; his opinionated manner; his angular fad lanky body; the thiess of his arms; the fact that his parents immigrated from Tarrytown, New York, not Tientsin, a.
My mother must have noticed these same differences after Ted picked me up one evening at my parents house. When I returned home, my mother was still up, watg television.
"He is Ameri," warned my mother, as if I had been too blind to notice. A waigoren."
"Im Ameri too," I said. "And its not as if Im going to marry him or something."
Mrs. Jordan also had a few words to say. Ted had casually invited me to a family piic, the annual reunion held by the polo fields in Golden Gate Park. Although we had dated only a few times in the last month—aainly had never slept together, sih of us lived at home—Ted introduced me to all his relatives as his girlfriend, which, until then, I didnt know I was.
Later, when Ted and his father went off to play volleyball with the others, his mother took my hand, aarted walking along the grass, away from the crowd. She squeezed my palm warmly but never seemed to look at me.
"Im so glad to meet you finally," Mrs. Jordan said. I wao tell her I wasnt really Teds girlfriend, but she went on. "I think its hat you and Ted are having such a lot of fun together. So I hope you wont misuand what I have to say."
And then she spoke quietly about Teds future, his o trate on his medical studies, why it would be years before he could even think about marriage. She assured me she had nothing whatsainst minorities; she and her husband, who owned a of office-supply stores, personally knew many fine people who were Oriental, Spanish, and even black. But Ted was going to be in one of those professions where he would be judged by a different standard, by patients and other doctors who might not be as uanding as the Jordans were. She said it was so unfortuhe way the rest of the world was, how unpopular the Vietnam War was.
"Mrs. Jordan, I am not Vietnamese," I said softly, even though I was on the verge of shouting. "And I have no iion of marrying your son."
When Ted drove me home that day, I told him I couldnt see him anymore. When he asked me why, I shrugged. When he pressed me, I told him what his mother had said, verbatim, without ent.
"And youre just going to sit there! Let my mother decide whats right?" he shouted, as if I were a co-spirator who had turraitor. I was touched that Ted was so upset.
"What should we do?" I asked, and I had a pained feeling I thought was the beginning of love.
In those early months, we g to each other with a rather silly desperation, because, in spite of anything my mother or Mrs. Jordan could say, there was nothing that really prevented us from seeing one another. With imagiragedy h over us, we became inseparable, two halves creating the whole: yin and yang. I was victim to his hero. I was always in danger and he was always resg me. I would fall and he would lift me up. It was exhilarating and draining. The emotional effect of saving and being saved was addig to both of us. And that, as much as anything we ever did in bed, was how we made love to each other: joined where my weaknesses needed prote.
"What should we do?" I tio ask him. And within a year of our first meeting we were living together. The month before Ted started medical school at UCSF we were married in the Episcopal church, and Mrs. Jordan sat in the front pew, g as was expected of the grooms mother. When Ted finished his residen dermatology, we bought a run-down three-story Victorian with a large garden in Ashbury Heights. Ted helped me set up a studio downstairs so I could take in work as a free-lance produ assistant fraphic artists.
Over the years, Ted decided where we went on vacation. He decided what new furniture we should buy. He decided we should wait until we moved into a better neighborhood before having children. We used to discuss some of these matters, but we both khe question would boil down to my saying, "Ted, you decide." After a while, there were no more discussions. Ted simply decided. And I hought of objeg. I preferred to ighe world around me, obsessing only over what was in front of me: my T-square, my X-acto knife, my blue pencil.
But last year Teds feelings about what he called "decision and responsibility" ged. A new patient had e to him asking what she could do about the spidery veins on her cheeks. And wheold her he could suck the red veins out and make her beautiful again, she believed him. But instead, he actally sucked a , and the left side of her smile fell down and she sued him.
After he lost the malpractice lawsuit—his first, and a big sho I now realize—he started pushio make des. Did I think we should buy an Ameri car or a Japanese car? Should we ge from whole-life to term insurance? What did I think about that didate who supported the tras? What about a family?
I thought about things, the pros and the s. But in the end I would be so fused, because I never believed there was ever any ht answer, yet there were many wrong ones. So whenever I said, "You decide," or "I dont care," or "Either way is fih me," Ted would say in his impatient voice, "No, you decide. You t have it both ways, none of the responsibility, none of the blame."
I could feel things giween us. A protective veil had been lifted and Ted now started pushing me about everything. He asked me to decide on the most trivial matters, as if he were baitialian food or Thai. One appetizer or two. Which appetizer. Credit card or cash. Visa or MasterCard.
Last month, when he was leaving for a two-day dermatology course in Los Angeles, he asked if I wao e along and then quickly, before I could say anything, he added, "Never mind, Id rather go alone."
"More time to study," I agreed.
"No, because you ever make up your mind about anything," he said.
And I protested, "But its only with things that arent important."
"Nothing is important to you, then," he said in a tone of disgust.
"Ted, if you wao go, Ill go."
And it was as if something snapped in him. "How the hell did we ever get married? Did you just say I do because the minister said repeat after me? What would you have doh your life if I had never married you? Did it ever occur to you?"
This was such a big leap in logic, between what I said and what he said, that I thought we were like two people standing apart on separate mountain peaks, recklessly leaning forward to throw sto one another, unaware of the dangerous chasm that separated us.
But now I realize Ted knew what he was saying all along. He wao show me the rift. Because later that evening he called from Los Angeles and said he wanted a divorce.
Ever sieds been gone, Ive been thinking, Even if I had expected it, even if I had known what I was going to do with my life, it still would have khe wind out of me.
When something that violent hits you, you t help but lose your baland fall. And after you pick yourself up, you realize you t trust anybody to save you—not your husband, not your mother, not God. So what you do to stop yourself from tilting and falling all ain?
My mother believed in Gods will for many years. It was as if she had turned on a celestial faucet and goodness kept p out. She said it was faith that kept all these good things ing our way, only I thought she said "fate," because she couldnt pronouhat "th" sound in "faith."
And later, I discovered that maybe it was fate all along, that faith was just an illusion that somehow youre in trol. I found out the most I could have was hope, and with that I was not denying any possibility, good or bad. I was just saying, If there is a choice, dear God or whatever you are, heres where the odds should be placed.
I remember the day I started thinking this, it was such a revelation to me. It was the day my mother lost her faith in God. She found that things of uioned certainty could never be trusted again.
We had goo the beach, to a secluded spot south of the city near Devils Slide. My father had read in Su magazihat this was a good place to catch o perch. And although my father was not a fisherman but a pharmacists assistant who had once been a doctor in a, he believed in his nengkan, his ability to do anythi his mind to. My mother believed she had nengkan to cook anything my father had a mind to catch. It was this belief in their nengkan that had brought my parents to America. It had ehem to have seven children and buy a house in the Su district with very little money. It had givehe fideo believe their luck would never run out, that God was on their side, that the house gods had only benevolent things to report and our aors were pleased, that lifetime warranties meant our lucky streak would never break, that all the elements were in balahe right amount of wind and water.
So there we were, the nine of us: my father, my mother, my two sisters, four brothers, and myself, so fident as we walked along our first beach. We marched in single file across the cool gray sand, from oldest to you. I was in the middle, fourteen years old. We would have made quite a sight, if anyone else had been watg, nine pairs of bare feet trudging, nine pairs of shoes in hand, nine black-haired heads turoward the water to watch the waves tumbling in.
The wind?９9lｉｂ.t> was whipping the cotton trousers around my legs and I looked for some place where the sand wouldnt kito my eyes. I saere standing in the hollow of a cove. It was like a giant bowl, cracked in half, the other half washed out to sea. My mother walked toward the right, where the beach was , and we all followed. On this side, the wall of the cove curved around and protected the beach from both the rough surf and the wind. And along this wall, in its shadow, was a reef ledge that started at the edge of the bead tinued out past the cove where the waters became rough. It seemed as though a person could walk out to sea on this reef, although it looked very rocky and slippery. Oher side of the cove, the wall was more jagged, eaten away by the water. It itted with crevices, so when the waves crashed against the wall, the water spewed out of these holes like white gulleys.
Thinking back, I remember that this beach cove was a terrible place, full of wet shadows that chilled us and invisible specks that flew into our eyes and made it hard for us to see the dangers. We were all blind with the newness of this experience: a ese family trying to act like a typical Ameri family at the beach.
My mother spread out an old striped bedspread, which flapped in the wind until nine pairs of shoes weighed it down. My father assembled his long bamboo fishing pole, a pole he had made with his own two hands, remembering its design from his childhood in a. And we children sat huddled shoulder to shoulder on the bla, reag into the grocery sack full of bologna sandwiches, which we hungrily ate salted with sand from our fingers.
Then my father stood up and admired his fishing pole, its grace, its strength. Satisfied, he picked up his shoes and walked to the edge of the bead then onto the reef to the point just before it was wet. My two older sisters, Janid Ruth, jumped up from the bla and slapped their thighs to get the sand off. Then they slapped each others bad raced off down the beach shrieking. I was about to get up and chase them, but my mother oward my four brothers and reminded me: "Dangsying tamende shenti," which means "Take care of them," or literally, "Watch out for their bodies." These bodies were the anchors of my life: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Bing. I fell bato the sand, groaning as my throat grew tight, as I made the same lament: "Why?" Why did I have to care for them?
And she gave me the same answer: "Yiding."
I must. Because they were my brothers. My sisters had oaken care of me. How else could I learn responsibility? How else could I appreciate what my parents had done for me?
Matthew, Mark, and Luke were twelve, ten, and nine, old enough to keep themselves loudly amused. They had already buried Luke in a shallow grave of sand so that only his head stuck out. Now they were starting to pat together the outlines of a sand-castle wall on top of him.
But Bing was only four, easily excitable and easily bored and irritable. He didnt want to play with the other brothers because they had pushed him off to the side, admonishing him, "No, Bing, youll just wreck it."
So Bing wandered down the beach, walking stiffly like an ousted emperor, pig up shards of rod ks of driftwood and flinging them with all his might into the surf. I trailed behind, imagining tidal waves and w what I would do if one appeared. I called to Bing every now and then, "Dont go too close to the water. Youll get your feet wet." And I thought how much I seemed like my mother, always worried beyond reason inside, but at the same time talking about the danger as if it were less than it really was. The worry surrounded me, like the wall of the cove, and it made me feel everything had been sidered and was now safe.
My mother had a superstition, in fact, that children were predisposed to certain dangers oain days, all depending on their ese birthdate. It was explained in a little ese book called The Twenty-Six Malignant Gates. There, on each page, was an illustration of some terrible dahat awaited young i children. In the ers was a description written in ese, and since I couldhe characters, I could only see what the picture meant.
The same little boy appeared in each picture: climbing a broken tree limb, standing by a falling gate, slipping in a wooden tub, being carried away by a snapping dog, fleeing from a bolt of lightning. And in each of these pictures stood a man who looked as if he were wearing a lizard e. He had a big crease in his forehead, or maybe it was actually that he had two round horns. In one picture, the lizard man was standing on a curved bridge, laughing as he watched the little boy falling forward over the bridge rail, his slippered feet already in the air.
It would have been enough to think that even one of these dangers could befall a child. And even though the birthdates correspoo only one danger, my mother worried about them all. This was because she couldnt figure out how the ese dates, based on the lunar dar, translated into Ameri dates. So by taking them all into at, she had absolute faith she could prevent every one of them.
The sun had shifted and moved over the other side of the cove wall. Everything had settled into place. My mother was busy keeping sand from blowing onto the blahen shaking sand out of shoes, and tag ers of blas back down again with the now shoes. My father was still standing at the end of the reef, patiently casting out, waiting for nengkan to ma itself as a fish. I could see small figures farther down on the beach, and I could tell they were my sisters by their two dark heads and yellow pants. My brothers shrieks were mixed with those of seagulls. Bing had found ay soda bottle and was using this to dig sao the dark cove wall. And I sat on the sand, just where the shadows ended and the sunny part began.
Bing ounding the soda bottle against the rock, so I called to him, "Dont dig so hard. Youll bust a hole in the wall and fall all the way to a." And I laughed when he looked at me as though he thought what I said was true. He stood up and started walking toward the water. He put one foot tentatively on the reef, and I warned him, "Bing."
"Im gonna see Daddy," he protested.
"Stay close to the wall, then, away from the water," I said. "Stay away from the mean fish."
And I watched as he inched his way along the reef, his back hugging the bumpy cove wall. I still see him, so clearly that I almost feel I make him stay there forever.
I see him standing by the wall, safe, calling to my father, who looks over his shoulder toward Bing. How glad I am that my father is going to watch him for a while! Bing starts to walk over and then something tugs on my fathers line and hes reeling as fast as he .
Shouts erupt. Someone has thrown sand in Lukes fad hes jumped out of his sand grave and thrown himself on top of Mark, thrashing and kig. My mother shouts for me to stop them. And right after I pull Luke off Mark, I look up and see Bing walking aloo the edge of the reef. In the fusion of the fight, nobody notices. I am the only one who sees what Bing is doing.
Bing walks owo, three steps. His little body is moving so quickly, as if he spotted something wonderful by the waters edge. And I think, Hes going to fall in. Im expeg it. And just as I think this, his feet are already in the air, in a moment of balance, before he splashes into the sea and disappears without leaving so much as a ripple ier.
I sank to my knees watg that spot where he disappeared, not moving, not saying anything. I couldnt make sense of it. I was thinking, Should I run to the water and try to pull him out? Should I shout to my father? I rise on my legs fast enough? I take it all bad forbid Bing from joining my father on the ledge?
And then my sisters were back, and one of them said, "Wheres Bing?" There was silence for a few seds and then shouts and sand flying as everyone rushed past me toward the waters edge. I stood there uo move as my sisters looked by the cove wall, as my brothers scrambled to see what lay behind pieces of driftwood. My mother and father were trying to part the waves with their hands.
We were there for many hours. I remember the search boats and the su when dusk came. I had never seen a su like that: a bright e flame toug the waters edge and then fanning out, warming the sea. When it became dark, the boats turheir yellow orbs on and bounced up and down on the dark shiny water.
As I look back, it seems unnatural to think about the colors of the su and boats at a time like that. But we all had strahoughts. My father was calculating minutes, estimating the temperature of the water, readjusting his estimate of when Bing fell. My sisters were calling, "Bing! Bing!" as if he were hiding in some bushes high above the beach cliffs. My brothers sat in the car, quietly reading ic books. And when the boats turned off their yellow orbs, my mother went for a swim. She had never swum a stroke in her life, but her faith in her own nengkan vinced her that what these Ameris couldnt do, she could. She could find Bing.
And when the rescue people finally pulled her out of the water, she still had her nengkan intact. Her hair, her clothes, they were all heavy with the cold water, but she stood quietly, calm and regal as a mermaid queen who had just arrived out of the sea. The police called off the search, put us all in our car, a us home to grieve.
I had expected to be beaten to death, by my father, by my mother, by my sisters and brothers. I k was my fault. I hadnt watched him closely enough, a I saw him. But as we sat in the dark living room, I heard them, one by one whispering their regrets.
"I was selfish to want to go fishing," said my father.
"We shouldnt have gone for a walk," said Janice, while Ruth blew her aime.
"Whyd you have to throw sand in my face?" moaned Luke. "Whyd you have to make me start a fight?"
And my mother quietly admitted to me, "I told you to stop their fight. I told you to take your eyes off him."
If I had had any time at all to feel a sense of relief, it would have quickly evaporated, because my mother also said, "So now I am telling you, we must go and find him, quickly, tomorrow m." And everybodys eyes looked down. But I saw it as my punishment: to go out with my mother, back to the beach, to help her find Bings body.
Nothing prepared me for what my mother did the day. When I woke up, it was still dark and she was already dressed. O table was a thermos, a teacup, the white leatherette Bible, and the car keys.
"Is Daddy ready?" I asked.
"Daddys not ing," she said.
"Then how will we get there? Who will drive us?"
She picked up the keys and I followed her out the door to the car. I wohe whole time as we drove to the beach how she had learo drive ht. She used no map. She drove smoothly ahead, turning down Geary, then the Great Highway, signaling at all the right times, getting on the Coast Highway and easily winding the car around the sharp curves that often led inexperienced drivers off and over the cliffs.
When we arrived at the beach, she walked immediately down the dirt path and over to the end of the reef ledge, where I had seen Bing disappear. She held in her hand the white Bible. And looking out over the water, she called to God, her small voice carried up by the gulls to heaven. It began with "Dear God" and ended with "Amen," and iween she spoke in ese.
"I have always believed in your blessings," she praised God in that same tone she used for exaggerated ese pliments. "We khey would e. We did not question them. Your decisions were our decisions. You rewarded us for our faith.
"Iurn we have always tried to show our deepest respect. We went to your house. We brought you money. We sang your songs. You gave us more blessings. And now we have misplaced one of them. We were careless. This is true. We had so many good things, we couldhem in our mind all the time.
"So maybe you hid him from us to teach us a lesson, to be more careful with yifts iure. I have learhis. I have put it in my memory. And now I have e to take Bing back."
I listened quietly as my mother said these words, horrifed. And I began to cry when she added, "Five us for his bad manners. My daughter, this oanding here, will be sure to teach him better lessons of obedience before he visits you again."
After her prayer, her faith was so great that she saw him, three times, waving to her from just beyond the first wave. "Nale!"—There! And she would stand straight as a sentinel, until three times her eyesight failed her and Bing turned into a dark spot of ing seaweed.
My mother did not let her fall down. She walked back to the bead put the Bible down. She picked up the thermos and teacup and walked to the waters edge. Theold me that the night before she had reached bato her life, back when she was a girl in a, and this is what she had found.
"I remember a boy who lost his hand in a firecracker act," she said. "I saw the shreds of this boys arm, his tears, and then I heard his mothers claim that he would grow baother hand, better than the last. This mother said she would pay ba aral debt ten times over. She would use a water treatment to soothe the wrath of Chu Jung, the three-eyed god of fire. And true enough, the week this boy was riding a bicycle, both hands steering a straight course past my astonished eyes!"
And then my mother became very quiet. She spoke again in a thoughtful, respectful manner.
"An aor of ours oole water from a sacred well. Now the water is trying to steal back. We must sweeteemper of the Coiling Dragon who lives in the sea. And then we must make him loosen his coils from Bing by giving him areasure he hide."
My mother poured out tea sweetened with sugar into the teacup, and threw this into the sea. And then she opened her fist. In her palm was a ring of watery blue sapphire, a gift from her mother, who had died many years before. This ring, she told me, drew coveting stares from women and made them iive to the children they guarded so jealously. This would make the Coiling Dragon fetful of Bing. She threw the ring into the water.
But even with this, Bing did not appear right away. For an hour or so, all we saw was seaweed drifting by. And then I saw her clasp her hands to her chest, and she said in a wondrous voice, "See, its because we were watg the wrong dire." And I too saw Bing trudging wearily at the far end of the beach, his shoes hanging in his hand, his dark head bent over in exhaustion. I could feel what my mother felt. The hunger in our hearts was instantly filled. And thewo of us, before we could eveo our feet, saw him light a cigarette, grow tall, and bee a stranger.
"Ma, lets go," I said as softly as possible.
"Hes there," she said firmly. She poio the jagged wall across the water. "I see him. He is in a cave, sitting on a little step above the water. He is hungry and a little cold, but he has learned now not to plain too much."
And theood up and started walking across the sandy beach as though it were a solid paved path, and I was trying to follow behind, struggling and stumbling in the soft mounds. She marched up the steep path to where the car arked, and she wasnt evehing hard as she pulled a large iube from the trunk. To this lifesaver, she tied the fishing line from my fathers bamboo pole. She walked bad threw the tube into the sea, holding onto the pole.
"This will go where Bing is. I will bring him back," she said fiercely. I had never heard so muengkan in my mothers voice.
The tube followed her mind. It drifted out, toward the other side of the cove where it was caught by stronger waves. The line became taut and she straio hold on tight. But the line snapped and then spiraled into the water.
We both climbed toward the end of the reef to watch. The tube had now reached the other side of the cove. A big wave smashed it into the wall. The bloated tube leapt up and then it was sucked in, uhe wall and into a cavern. It popped out. Over and ain, it disappeared, emerged, glistening black, faithfully rep it had seen Bing and was going back to try to pluck him from the cave. Over and ain, it dove and popped back up agaiy but still hopeful. And then, after a dozen or so times, it was sucked into the dark recess, and when it came out, it was torn and lifeless.
At that moment, and not until that moment, did she give up. My mother had a look on her face that Ill never fet. It was one of plete despair and horror, for losing Bing, for being so foolish as to think she could use faith to ge fate. And it made me angry—so blindingly angry—that everything had failed us.
I know now that I had never expected to find Bing, just as I knoill never find a way to save my marriage. My mother tells me, though, that I should still try.
"Whats the point?" I say. "Theres no hope. Theres no reason to keep trying."
"Because you must," she says. "This is not hope. Not reason. This is your fate. This is your life, what you must do."
"So what I do?"
And my mother says, "You must think for yourself, what you must do. If someoells you, then you are n." And then she walks out of the kit to let me think about this.
I think about Bing, how I knew he was in danger, how I let it happen. I think about my marriage, how I had seen the signs, really I had. But I just let it happen. And I think now that fate is shaped half by expectation, half by iion. But somehow, when you lose something you love, faith takes over. You have to pay attention to what you lost. You have to undo the expectation.
My mother, she still pays attention to it. That Bible uhe table, I know she sees it. I remember seeing her write in it before she wedged it under.
I lift the table and slide the Bible out. I put the Bible oable, flipping quickly through the pages, because I know its there. On the page before the estament begins, theres a se called "Deaths," and thats where she wrote "Bing Hsu" lightly, in erasable pencil.
Half and Half Up
Two Kinds
Jing-Mei Woo
My mother believed you could be anything you wao be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the gover a good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could bee rich. You could bee instantly famous.
"Of course you be prodigy, too," my mother told me when I was nine. "You be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky."
America was where all my mothers hopes lay. She had e here in 1949 after losing everything in a: her mother and father, her family home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. There were so many ways for things to get better.
We didnt immediately pick the right kind y. At first my mother thought I could be a ese Shirley Temple. Wed watch Shirleys old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, "Ni kan"—You watch. And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying, "Oh my goodness."
"Ni kan," said my mother as Shirleys eyes flooded with tears. "You already know how. Doalent f!"
Soon after my mot this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to a beauty training school in the Mission distrid put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of kly black fuzz. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair.
"You look like Negro ese," she lamented, as if I had dohis on purpose.
The instructor of the beauty training school had to lop off these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. "Peter Pan is very popular these days," the instructor assured my mother. I now had hair the length of a boys, with straight-across bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut and it made me actually look forward to my future fame.
In fact, in the beginning, I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so. I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, trying eae on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtains, waiting to hear the right music that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, g with holy indignity. I was derella stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly usic filling the air.
In all of my imaginings, I was filled with a sehat I would soon bee perfect. My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the o sulk for anything.
But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. "If you dont hurry up a me out of here, Im disappearing food," it warned. "And then youll always be nothing."
Every night after dinner, my mother and I would sit at the Formica kit table. She would preseests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children she had read in Ripleys Believe It or Not, ood Housekeeping, Readers Digest, and a dozen azines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mot these magazines from people whose houses she ed. And since she ed many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searg for stories about remarkable children.
The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who khe capitals of all the states and even most of the European tries. A teacher was quoted as saying the little boy could also pronouhe names of the fn cities correctly.
"Whats the capital of Finland?" my mother asked me, looking at the magaziory.
All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento was the name of the street we lived on in atown. "Nairobi!" I guessed, saying the most fn word I could think of. She checked to see if that ossibly one way to pronounce " Helsinki" before showihe answer.
The tests got harder—multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predig the daily temperatures in Los Angeles, New York, and London.
One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and the everything I could remember. "Now Jehoshaphat had riches and honor in abundand…thats all I remember, Ma," I said.
And after seeing my mothers disappointed face again, something inside of me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Befoing to bed that night, I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink and when I saw only my face staring bad that it would always be this ordinary face—I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made highpitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the fa the mirror.
And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me—because I had never seen that face before. I looked at my refle, blinking so I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. This girl and I were the same. I had houghts, willful thoughts, or rather thoughts filled with lots of wonts. I wo her ge me, I promised myself. I wont be what Im not.
So now on nights when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I preteo be bored. And I was. I got so bored I started ting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was f and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the day, I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually ted only one, maybe two bellows at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope.
Two or three months had gone by without aion of my being a prodigy again. And then one day my mother was watg The Ed Sullivan Show on TV. The TV was old and the sou sh out. Every time my mot half from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would go ba and Ed would be talking. As soon as she sat down, Ed would go silent again. She got up, the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat down. Silence. Up and down, bad forth, quiet and loud. It was like a stiff embraceless daween her and the TV set. Finally she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial.
She seemed entranced by the music, a little frenzied piano piece with this mesmerizing quality, sort of quick passages and then teasing lilting ones before it returo the quick playful parts.
"Ni kan," my mother said, calling me over with hurried haures, "Look here."
I could see why my mother was fasated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little ese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauess of a Shirley Temple. She roudly modest like a proper ese child. And she also did this fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded slowly to the floor like the petals of a large ation.
In spite of these warning signs, I wasnt worried. Our family had no piano and we couldnt afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet musid piano lessons. So I could be generous in my ents when my mother bad-mouthed the little girl on TV.
"Play nht, but doesnt sound good! No singing sound," plained my mother.
"What are you pig on her for?" I said carelessly. "Shes pretty good. Maybe shes not the best, but shes trying hard." I knew almost immediately I would be sorry I said that.
"Just like you," she said. "Not the best. Because you n." She gave a little huff as she let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa.
The little ese girl sat down also to play an encore of "Anitras Dance" by Grieg. I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it.
Three days after watg The Ed Sullivan Show, my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr. g, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr. g was a retired piano teacher and my mother had traded houseing services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practi every day, two hours a day, from four until six.
When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had beeo hell. I whined and then kicked my foot a little when I couldnt stand it anymore.
"Why dont you like me the way I am? Im not a genius! I t play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldnt go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!" I cried.
My mother slapped me. "Who ask you be genius?" she shouted. "Only ask you be your best. For you sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!"
"So ungrateful," I heard her mutter in ese. "If she had as much talent as she has temper, she would be famous now."
Mr. g, whom I secretly niamed Old g, was very strange, always tapping his fio the silent music of an invisible orchestra. He looked a in my eyes. He had lost most of the hair on top of his head and he wore thick glasses and had eyes that always looked tired and sleepy. But he must have been youhan I thought, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married.
I met Old Lady g ond that was enough. She had this peculiar smell like a baby that had done something in its pants. And her fingers felt like a dead persons, like an old peach I once found in the back of the refrigerator; the skin just slid off the meat when I picked it up.
I soon found out why Old g had retired from teag piano. He was deaf. "Like Beethoven!" he shouted to me. "Were both listening only in our head!" And he would start to duct his frantic silent sonatas.
Our lesso like this. He would open the book and point to different things, explaining their purpose: "Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen nolay after me!"
And then he would play the C scale a few times, a simple chord, and then, as if inspired by an old, unreachable itch, he gradually added more notes and running trills and a pounding bass until the music was really something quite grand.
I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then I just played some nonsehat sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage s. Old g smiled and applauded and then said, "Very good! But now you must learn to keep time!"
So thats how I discovered that Old gs eyes were too slow to keep up with the wrong notes I laying. He went through the motions in half-time. To help me keep rhythm, he stood behind me, pushing down on my right shoulder for every beat. He balanced pennies on top of my wrists so I would keep them still as I slowly played scales and arpeggios. He had me curve my hand around an apple ahat shape when playing chords. He marched stiffly to show me how to make each finger dance up and down, staccato like an obedient little soldier.
He taught me all these things, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy a away with mistakes, lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes because I hadnt practiced enough, I never corrected myself. I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old g kept dug his own private reverie.
So maybe I never really gave myself a fair ce. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly, and I might have bee a good pianist at that young age. But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different that I learo play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.
Over the year, I practiced like this, dutifully in my own way. And then one day I heard my mother and her friend Lindo Jong both talking in a loud bragging tone of voice so others could hear. It was after church, and I was leaning against the brick wall wearing a dress with stiff white petticoats. Auntie Lindos daughter, Waverly, who was about my age, was standing farther down the wall about five feet away. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty. Waverly Jong had gained a certain amount of fame as "atowns Littlest ese Chess Champion."
"She bring home too many trophy," lamented Auntie Lindo that Sunday. "All day she play chess. All day I have no time do nothing but dust off her winnings." She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her.
"You lucky you dont have this problem," said Auntie Lindo with a sigh to my mother.
And my mother squared her shoulders and bragged: "Our problem worser than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. Its like you t stop this natural talent."
And right then, I was determio put a stop to her foolish pride.
A few weeks later, Old g and my mother spired to have me play in a talent show which would be held in the church hall. By then, my parents had saved up enough to buy me a sedhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spi with a scarred bench. It was the showpiece of our living room.
For the talent show, I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child" from Schumanns Ses from Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing, playing the repeat parts twiake the piece sound longer. But I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and theing, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listeo what I laying. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else.
The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a pointed foot, sweep to the side, left leg bends, look up and smile.
My parents invited all the couples from the Joy Luck Club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uihere. Waverly awo older brothers had also e. The first two rows were filled with children both younger and older than I was. The littlest ones got to go first. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes on miniature violins, twirled Hula Hoops, pranced in pink ballet tutus, and when they bowed or curtsied, the audi..ence would sigh in unison, "A," and then clap enthusiastically.
When my turn came, I was very fident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. I remember thinking to myself, This is it! This is it! I looked out over the audie my mothers blank face, my fathers yawn, Auntie Lindos stiff-lipped smile, Waverlys sulky expression. I had on a white dress layered with sheets of lace, and a pink bow in my Peter Pan haircut. As I sat down I envisioned people jumping to their feet and Ed Sullivan rushing up to introduce me to everyone on TV.
And I started to play. It was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that at first I didnt worry how I would sound. So it was a surprise to me when I hit the first wrong note and I realized something didnt sound quite right. And then I hit another and another followed that. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle dow I couldnt stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I kept thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switg to the right track. I played this strange jumble through two repeats, the sour aying with me all the way to the end.
When I stood up, I discovered my legs were shaking. Maybe I had just been nervous and the audience, like Old g, had seen me gh the right motions and had not heard anything wrong at all. I swept my right foot out, went down on my knee, looked up and smiled. The room was quiet, except for Old g, who was beaming and shouting, "Bravo! Bravo! Well done!" But then I saw my mothers face, her stri face. The audience clapped weakly, and as I walked bay chair, with my whole face quivering as I tried not to cry, I heard a little boy whisper loudly to his mother, "That was awful," and the mother whispered back, "Well, she certainly tried."
And now I realized hoeople were in the audiehe whole world it seemed. I was aware of eyes burning into my back. I felt the shame of my mother and father as they sat stiffly throughout the rest of the show.
We could have escaped during intermission. Pride and some strange sense of honor must have anchored my parents to their chairs. And so we watched it all: the eighteen-year-old boy with a fake mustache who did a magic show and juggled flaming hoops while riding a unicycle. The breasted girl with white makeup who sang from Madama Butterfly and got honorable mention. And the eleven-year-old boy who won first prize playing a tricky violin song that sounded like a busy bee.
After the show, the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs from the Joy Luck Club came up to my mother and father.
"Lots of talented kids," Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly.
"That was somethin else," said my father, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done.
Waverly looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. "You arent a genius like me," she said matter-of-factly. And if I had so bad, I would have pulled her braids and punched her stomach.
But my mothers expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything. I felt the same way, and it seemed as if everybody were now ing up, like gawkers at the se of an act, to see arts were actually missing. Whe on the bus to go home, my father was humming the busy-bee tune and my mother was silent. I kept thinking she wao wait until we got home before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and theo the back, into the bedroom. No accusations. No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so I could shout bad cry and blame her for all my misery.
I assumed my talent-show fiaseant I never had to play the piano again. But two days later, after sy mother came out of the kit and saw me watg TV.
"Four clock," she reminded me as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were askio gh the talent-show tain. I wedged myself more tightly in front of the TV.
"Turn off TV," she called from the kit five minutes later.
I didnt budge. And then I decided. I didnt have to do what my mother said anymore. I wasnt her slave. This wasnt a. I had listeo her before and look what happened. She was the stupid one.
She came out from the kit and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. "Four clock," she said once again, louder.
"Im not going to play anymore," I said nonchalantly. "Why should I? Im not a genius."
She walked over and stood in front of the TV. I saw her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way.
"No!" I said, .9９lｉｂ?and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along.
"No! I wont!" I screamed.
She yanked me by the arm, pulled me off the floor, snapped off the TV. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carryioward the piano as I kicked the thrs under my feet. She lifted me up and onto the hard bench. I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth en, smiling crazily as if she were pleased I was g.
"You wao be someohat Im not!" I sobbed. "Ill never be the kind of daughter you wao be!"
"Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in ese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter live in this house. Obedient daughter!"
"Then I wish I wasnt your daughter. I wish you werent my mother," I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, as if this awful side of me had surfaced, at last.
"Too late ge this," said my mother shrilly.
And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wao see it spill over. And thats when I remembered the babies she had lost in a, the ones we alked about. "Then I wish Id never been born!" I shouted. "I wish I were dead! Like them."
It was as if I had said the magic words. Alakazam!—and her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.
It was not the only disappoi my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her so many times, each time asserting my own will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didraight As. I didnt bee class president. I did into Stanford. I dropped out of college.
For unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wao be. I could only be me.
And for all those years, we alked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible accusations afterward at the piano bench. All that remained unchecked, like a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something se that failure was iable.
And even worse, I never asked her what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope?
For after our struggle at the piano, she never mentioned my playing again. The lessons stopped. The lid to the piano was closed, shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams.
So she surprised me. A few years ago, she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth birthday. I had not played in all those years. I saw the offer as a sign of fiveness, a tremendous burden removed.
"Are you sure?" I asked shyly. "I mean, wont you and Dad miss it?"
"No, this your piano," she said firmly. "Always your piano. You only one play."
"Well, I probably t play anymore," I said. "Its been years."
"You pick up fast," said my mother, as if she khis was certain. "You have natural talent. You could been genius if you want to."
"No I couldnt."
"You just n," said my mother. And she was her angry nor sad. She said it as if to announce a fact that could never be disproved. "Take it," she said.
But I didnt at first. It was enough that she had offered it to me. And after that, every time I saw it in my parents living room, standing in front of the bay windows, it made me feel proud, as if it were a shiny trophy I had won back.
Last week I sent a tuner over to my parents apartment and had the piano reditioned, for purely seal reasons. My mother had died a few months before and I had beeing things in order for my father, a little bit at a time. I put the jewelry in special silk pouches. The sweaters she had knitted in yellow, pink, bright e—all the colors I hated—I put those in moth-proof boxes. I found some old ese silk dresses, the kind with little slits up the sides. I rubbed the old silk against my skin, then ed them in tissue and decided to take them home with me.
After I had the piano tuned, I opehe lid and touched the keys. It sounded even richer than I remembered. Really, it was a very good piano. Ihe bench were the same exercise notes with handwritten scales, the same sedhand music books with their covers held together with yelloe.
I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piece I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand side of the page, "Pleading Child." It looked more difficult than I remembered. I played a few bars, surprised at how easily the notes came bae.
And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the pie the right-hand side. It was called "Perfectly tented." I tried to play this one as well. It had a lighter melody but the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. "Pleading Child" was shorter but slower; "Perfectly tented" was longer, but faster. And after I played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.
American Translation
"Wah!" cried the.. mother upon seeing the mirrored armoire in the master suite of her daughters new inium. "You ot put mirrors at the foot of the bed. All your marriage happiness will bounce bad turn the opposite way."
"Well, thats the only place it fits, so thats where it stays," said the daughter, irritated that her mother saw bad omens ihing. She had heard these warnings all her life.
The mother frowned, reag into her twice-used Macys bag. "Hunh, lucky I fix it for you, then." And she pulled out the gilt-edged mirror she had bought at 藏书网the Price Club last week. It was her housewarming present. She lea against the headboard, on top of the two pillows.
"You hang it here," said the mother, pointing to the wall above. "This mirror sees that mirror—haule!—multiply your peach-blossom luck."
"What is peac..h-blossom luck?"
The mother smiled, mischief in her eyes. &..quot;It is in here," she said, pointing to the mirror. "Look iell me, am I nht? In this mirror is my future grandchild, already sitting on my lap spring."
And the daughter looked—and haule!There it was: her own refle looking back at.. her.
Rice Husband
Lena St. Clair
To this day, I believe my mother has the mysterious ability to see things before they happen. She has a ese saying for what she knows. wang chihan: If the lips are gohe teeth will be cold. Which means, I suppose, ohing is always the result of another.
But she does not predict whehquakes will e, or how the stock market will do. She sees only bad things that affect our family. And she knows what causes them. But now she laments that she never did anything to stop them.
Oime when I was growing up in San Francisco, she looked at the way our neartment sat too steeply on the hill. She said the new baby in her womb would fall out dead, and it did.
When a plumbing and bathroom fixtures store opened up across the street from our bank, my mother said the bank would soon have all its money drained away. And one month later, an officer of the bank was arrested for embezzlement.
And just after my father died last year, she said she khis would happen. Because a philodendron plant my father had g９９ｌｉｂ.iven her had withered and died, despite the fact that she watered it faithfully. She said the plant had damaged its roots and no water could get to it. The autopsy report she later received showed my father had had y-pert blockage of the arteries before he died of a heart attack at the age of seventy-four. My father was not ese like my mother, but English-Irish Ameri, who enjoyed his five slices of ba and three eggs sunnyside up every m.
I remember this ability of my mothers, because now she is visiting my husband and me in the house we just bought in Woodside. And I wonder what she will see.
Harold and I were lucky to find this place, which is he summit of Highway 9, then a left-right-left down three forks of unmarked dirt roads, unmarked because the residents always tear down the signs to keep out salesmen, developers, and city iors. We are only a forty-minute drive to my mothers apartment in San Francisco. This became a sixty-minute ordeal ing back from San Francisco, when my mother was with us in the car. After we got to the two-lane winding road to the summit, she touched her haly to Harolds shoulder and softly said, "Ai, tire squealing." And then a little later, "Too much tear and wear on car."
Harold had smiled and slowed down, but I could see his hands were ched oeering wheel of the Jaguar, as he glanervously in his rearview mirror at the line of impatient cars that was growing by the minute. And I was secretly glad to watch his disfort. He was always the one who tailgated old ladies in their Buicks, honking his horn and revving the engine as if he would run them over uhey pulled over.
And at the same time, I hated myself for being mean-spirited, for thinking Harold deserved this torment. Yet I couldnt help myself. I was mad at Harold and he was exasperated with me. That m, before we picked my mother up, he had said, "You should pay for the exterminators, because Mirugai is your cat and so theyre your fleas. Its only fair."
None of our friends could ever believe we fight over something as stupid as fleas, but they would also never believe that our problems are much, much deeper than that, so deep I dont even know where bottom is.
And now that my mother is here—she is staying for a week, or until the electris are done rewiring her building in San Francisco—we have to pretend nothing is the matter.
Meanwhile she asks over and ain why we had to pay so much for a renovated barn and a mildew-lined pool on four acres of land, two of which are covered with redwood trees and poison oak. Actually she doesnt really ask, she just says, "Aii, so much money, so much," as we show her different parts of the house and land. And her laments always pel Harold to explain to my mother in simple terms: "Well, you see, its the details that cost so much. Like this wood floor. Its hand-bleached. And the walls here, this marbleized effect, its hand-sponged. Its really worth it."
And my mother nods and agrees: "Blead sponge cost so much."
During our brief tour of the house, shes already found the flaws. She says the slant of the floor makes her feel as if she is "running down." She thinks the guest room where she will be staying—which is really a former hayloft shaped by a sloped roof—has "two lopsides." She sees spiders in high ers and even fleas jumping up in the air—pah! pah! pah!—like little spatters of hot oil. My mothers knows, underh all the fancy details that cost so much, this house is still a barn.
She see all this. And it annoys me that all she sees are the bad parts. But then I look around and everything shes said is true. And this vinces me she see what else is going oween Harold and me. She knows whats going to happen to us. Because I remember something else she saw when I was eight years old.
My mother had looked in my rice bowl and told me I would marry a bad man.
"Aii, Lena," she had said after that dinner so many y９９lib.ears ago, "your future husband have one pock mark for every rice you not finish."
She put my bowl down. "I onoock-mark man. Mean man, bad man."
And I thought of a mean neighbor boy who had tiny pits in his cheeks, and it was true, those marks were the size of rice grains. This boy was about twelve and his name was Arnold.
Arnold would shoot rubber bands at my legs whenever I walked past his building on my way home from school, and oime he ran over my doll with his bicycle, crushing her legs below the knees. I didnt want this cruel boy to be my future husband. So I picked up that cold bowl of rid scraped the last few grains into my mouth, then smiled at my mother, fident my future husband would be not Arnold but someone whose face was as smooth as the porcelain in my now bowl.
But my mhed. "Yesterday, you not finish rice either." I thought of those unfinished mouthfuls of rice, and then the grains that lined my bowl the day before, and the day before that. By the minute, my eight-year-old heart grew more and more terror-stri over the growing possibility that my future husband was fated to be this mean boy Arnold. And thanks to my poor eating habits, his hideous face would eventually resemble the craters of the moon.
This would have been a funny io remember from my childhood, but it is actually a memory I recall from time to time with a mixture of nausea and remorse. My loathing for Arnold had grown to such a point that I eventually found a way to make him die. I let ohi from another. Of course, all of it could have been just loosely ected ces. And whether thats true or not, I know the iion was there. Because when I want something to happen—or not happen—I begin to look at all events and all things as relevant, an opportunity to take or avoid.
I found the opportunity. The same week my mother told me about the rice bowl and my future husband, I saw a shog film at Sunday school. I remember the teacher had dimmed the lights so that all we could see were silhouettes of one aheeacher looked at us, a roomful of squirmy, well-fed ese-Ameri children, and she said, "This film will show you why you should give tithings to God, to do Gods work."
She said, "I want you to think about a nickels worth of dy money, or however much you eat each week—yood and Plentys, your Necco wafers, your jujubes—and pare that to what you are about to see. And I also want you to think about what your true blessings in life really are."
And the the film projector clattering away. The film showed missionaries in Afrid India. These good souls worked with people whose legs were swollen to the size of tree trunks, whose numb limbs had bee as twisted as jungle vines. But the most terrible of the afflis were men and women with leprosy. Their faces were covered with every kind of misery I could imagine: pits and pustules, cracks and bumps, and fissures that I was sure erupted with the same vehemence as snails writhing in a bed of salt. If my mother had been in the room, she would have told me these poor people were victims of future husbands and wives who had failed to eat platefuls of food.
After seeing this film, I did a terrible thing. I saw what I had to do so I would not have to marry Arnold. I began to leave more ri my bowl. And theended my prodigal ways beyond ese food. I did not finish my creamed , broccoli, Rice Krispies, or peanut butter sandwiches. And once, when I bit into a dy bar and saw how lumpy it was, how full of secret dark spots and creamy goo, I sacrificed that as well.
I sidered that probably nothing would happen to Arnold, that he might not get leprosy, move to Afrid die. And this somehow balahe dark possibility that he might.
He didnt die right away. In fact, it was some five years later, by which time I had bee quite thin. I had stopped eating, not because of Arnold, whom I had long fotten, but to be fashionably anorexic like all the other thirteen-year-old girls who were dieting and finding other ways to suffer as teenagers. I was sitting at the breakfast table, waiting for my mother to finish pag a sack lunch which I alromptly threw away as soon as I rouhe er. My father was eating with his fingers, dabbing the ends of his ba into the egg yolks with one hand, while holding the neer with the other.
"Oh my, listen to this," he said, still dabbing. And thats when he annouhat Arnold Reisman, a boy who lived in our old neighborhood in Oakland, had died of plications from measles. He had just been accepted to Cal State Hayward and lanning to bee a podiatrist.
"Doctors were at first baffled by the disease, which they report is extremely rare and generally attacks childreween the ages of ten and twenty, months to years after they have tracted the measles virus, " read my father. "The boy had had a mild case of the measles when he was twelve, reported his mother. Problems this year were first noticed when the boy developed motor coordination problems aal lethargy whicreased until he fell into a a. The boy, age seventeen, never regained sciousness.
"Didnt you know that boy?" asked my father, and I stood there mute.
"This is shame," said my mother, looking at me. "This is terrible shame."
And I thought she could see through me and that she knew I was the one who had caused Arnold to die. I was terrified.
Th藏书网at night, in my room, I ged myself. I had stolen a halfgallon of strawberry ice cream from the freezer, and I forced spoonful after spoonful down my throat. And later, for several hours after that, I sat hunched on the fire escape landing outside my bedroom, retg bato the ice cream tainer. And I remember w why it was that eating something good could make me feel so terrible, while vomiting something terrible could make me feel so good.
The thought that I could have caused Arnolds death is not so ridiculous. Perhaps he was destio be my husband. Because I think to myself, even today, how the world in all its chaos e up with so many ces, so many similarities a opposites? Why did Arnold single me out for his rubber-band torture? How is it that he tracted measles the same year I began sciously to hate him? And why did I think of Arnold in the first place—when my mother looked in my rice bowl—and then e to hate him so much? Isnt hate merely the result of wounded love?
And even when I finally dismiss all of this as ridiculous, I still feel that somehow, for the most part, we deserve what we get. I did Arnold. I got Harold.
Harold and I work at the same architectural firm, Livotny & Associates. Only Harold Livotny is a partner and I am an associate. We met eight years ago, before he started Livotny & Associates. I was twe, a project assistant, and he was thirty-four. We both worked in the restaurant design and development division of Harned Kelley & Davis.
We started seeing each other for w luo talk about the projects, and we would always split the tab right in half, even though I usually ordered only a salad because I have this tendency to gai easily. Later, whearted meetily for dinner, we still divided the bill.
And we just tihat way, everything right down the middle. If anything, I enced it. Sometimes I insisted on paying for the whole thing: meal, drinks, and tip. And it really didnt bother me.
"Lena, youre really extraordinary," Harold said after six months of dinners, five months of post-prandial lovemaking, and one week of timid and silly love fessions. We were lying in bed, between new purple sheets I had just bought for him. His old set of white sheets was stained in revealing places, not very romantic.
And he nuzzled my ned whispered, "I dont think Ive ever met another woman, whos so together…"—and I remember feeling a hiccup of fear upon hearing the words "another woman," because I could imagine dozens, hundreds of ad women eager to buy Harold breakfast, lunch, and dio feel the pleasure of his breath on their skin.
The my ned said in a rush, "Nor anyone whos as soft and squishy and lovable as you are."
And with that, I swooned inside, caught off balance by this latest revelation of love, w how such a remarkable person as Harold could think I was extraordinary.
Now that Im angry at Harold, its hard to remember what was so remarkable about him. And I know theyre there, the good qualities, because I wasnt that stupid to fall in love with him, to marry him. All I remember is how awfully lucky I felt, and sequently how worried I was that all this undeserved good fortune would someday slip away. When I fantasized about moving in with him, I alsed up my deepest fears: that he would tell me I smelled bad, that I had terrible bathroom habits, that my taste in musid television alling. I worried that Harold would someday get a new prescription for his glasses and hed put them on one m, look me up and down, and say, "Why, gosh, you arent the girl I thought you were, are you?"
And I think that feeling of fear never left me, that I would be caught someday, exposed as a sham of a woman. But retly, a friend of mine, Rose, whos in therapy now because her marriage has already fallen apart, told me those kinds of thoughts are onpla women like us.
"At first I thought it was because I was raised with all this ese humility," Rose said. "Or that maybe it was because when youre ese youre supposed to accept everything, flow with the Tao and not make waves. But my therapist said, Why do you blame your culture, your ethnicity? And I remembered reading an article about baby boomers, how we expect the best and whe it we worry that maybe we should have expected more, because its all diminishiurns after a certain age."
And after my talk with Rose, I felt better about myself and I thought, Of course, Harold and I are equals, in many respects. Hes ly handsome in the classise, although clear-skinned aainly attractive in that wiry intellectual way. And I may not be a raviy, but a lot of women in my aerobics class tell me Im "exotic" in an unusual way, and theyre jealous that my breasts dont sag, now that small breasts are in. Plus, one of my ts said I have incredible vitality and exuberance.
So I think I deserve someone like Harold, and I mean in the good sense and not like bad karma. Were equals. Im also smart. I have on sense. And Im intuitive, highly so. I was the one who told Harold he was good enough to start his own firm.
When we were still w at Harned Kelley & Davis, I said, "Harold, this firm knows just what a good deal it has with you. Youre the goose who lays the golden egg. If you started your own busioday, youd walk away with more than half of the restaurant ts."
And he said, laughing, "Half? Boy, thats love."
And I shouted back, laughing with him, "More than half! Youre that good. Youre the best there is iaurant design and development. You know it and I know it, and so do a lot of restaurant developers."
That was the night he decided to "go for it," as he put it, which is a phrase I have personally detested ever since a bank I used to work for adopted the slogan for its employee productivity test.
But still, I said to Harold, "Harold, I want to help you go for it, too. I mean, yoing to need moo start this business."
He wouldnt hear of taking any money from me, not as a favor, not as a loan, not as an iment, or even as the down payment on a partnership. He said he valued our relationship too much. He didnt want to i with money. He explained, "I wouldnt want a handout any more than youd want one. As long as we keep the mohing separate, well always be sure of our love for each other."
I wao protest. I wao say, "No! Im not really this way about mohe way weve been doing it. Im really into giving freely. I want…" But I didnt know where to begin. I wao ask him who, what woman, had hurt him this way, that made him so scared about accepting love in all its wonderful forms. But then I heard him saying what Id been waiting to hear for a long, long time.
"Actually, you could help me out if you moved in with me. I mean, that way I could use the five hundred dollars rent you paid to me…"
"Thats a wonderful idea," I said immediately, knowing how embarrassed he was to have to ask me that way. I was so deliriously happy that it didnt matter that the rent on my studio was really only four huhirty-five. Besides, Harolds place was muicer, a two-bedroom flat with a two-hundred-forty-degree view of the bay. It was worth the extra money, no matter whom I shared the place with.
So within the year, Harold and I quit Harned Kelley & Davis aarted Livotny & Associates, and I went to work there as a project coordinator. And no, he did half the restaurant ts of Harned Kelley & Davis. In fact, Harned Kelley & Davis threateo sue if he walked away with even one t over the year. So I gave him pep talks in the evening when he was disced. I told him how he should do more avantgarde thematic restaurant design, to differentiate himself from the other firms.
"Who needs another brass and oakwood bar and grill?" I said. "Who wants another pasta pla sleek Italian moderno? Holaces you go to with police cars lurg out of the walls? This town is chockablock with restaurants that are just es of the same old themes. You find a niche. Do something different every time. Get the Hong Kong iors who are willing to sink some bucks into Ameri iy."
He gave me his ad smile, the ohat said, "I love it when youre so naive." And I adored his looking at me like that.
So I stammered out my love. "You…you…could do heme eating places…a…a…Home on the Range! All the home-cooked mom stuff, mom at the kit rah a gingham apron and mom waitresses leaning over telling you to finish your soup.
"And maybe…maybe you could do a novel-meaurant…foods from fi…sandwiches from Lawrence Sanders murder mysteries, just desserts from Nora Ephroburn. And something else with a magic theme, or jokes and gags, or…"
Harold actually listeo me. He took those ideas and he applied them in an educated, methodical way. He made it happen. But still, I remember, it was my idea.
And today Livotny & Associates is a growing firm of twelve full-time people, which specializes iic restaurant design, what I still like to call "theme eating." Harold is the cept man, the chief architect, the desighe person who makes the final sales presentation to a new t. I work uhe interior designer, because, as Harold explains, it would not seem fair to the other employees if he promoted me just because we are now married—that was five years ago, two years after he started Livotny & Associates. And even though I am very good at what I do, I have never been formally trained in this area. When I was maj in Asian-Ameri studies, I took only one relevant course, ier set design, for a college produ of Madama Butterfly.
At Livotny & Associates, I procure the theme elements. For oaurant called The Fishermans Tale, one of my prized findings was a yellow varnished wood boat stenciled with the name "Overbored," and I was the one who thought the menus should dangle from miniature fishing poles, and the napkins be printed with rulers that have iranslating into feet. For a Lawrence of Arabia deli called Tray Sheik, I was the one who thought the place should have a bazaar effect, and I found the replicas of cobras lying on fake Hollywood boulders.
I love my work when I dont think about it too much. And when I do think about it, how much I get paid, how hard I work, how fair Harold is to everybody except me, I get upset.
So really, were equals, except that Harold makes about seven times more than what I make. He knows this, too, because he signs my monthly check, and then I deposit it into my separate cheg at.
Lately, however, this business about being equals started to bother me. Its been on my mind, only I didnt really know it. I just felt a little uneasy about something. And then about a week ago, it all became clear. I utting the breakfast dishes away and Harold was warming up the car so we could go to work. And I saw the neer spread open o ter, Harolds glasses on top, his favorite coffee mug with the chipped handle off to the side. And for some reason, seeing all these little domestic signs of familiarity, our daily ritual, made me swoon inside. But it was as if I were seeing Harold the first time we made love, this feeling of surrendering everything to him, with abandon, without g what I got iurn.
And when I got into the car, I still had the glow of that feeling and I touched his hand and said, "Harold, I love you." And he looked in the rearview mirror, bag up the car, and said, "I love you, too. Did you lock the door?" And just like that, I started to think, Its just not enough.
Harold jihe car keys and says, "Im going down the hill to buy stuff for dinner. Steaks okay? Want anything special?"
"Were out of rice," I say, discreetly nodding toward my mother, whose back is turo me. Shes looking out the kit window, at the trellis of bougainvillea. And then Harold is out the door and I hear the deep rumble of the car and then the sound of g gravel as he drives away.
My mother and I are alone in the house. I start to water the plants. She is standing oiptoes, peering at a list stu our refrigerator door.
The list says "Lena" and "Harold" and under each of our names are things weve bought and how much they cost:
Lenu
chi, veg., bread, broccoli, shampoo, beer $19.63
Maria ( + tip) $65 groceries
(see shop list) $55.15
petunias, potting soil $14.11
Photo developing $13.83
Harold
Garage stuff $25.35
Bathroom stuff $5.41
Car stuff $6.57
Light Fixtures $87.26
Road gravel $19.99
Gas $22.00
Car Smog Check $35
Movies & Dinner $65
Ice Cream $4.50
The way things are going this week, Harolds already spent over a hundred dollars more, so Ill owe him around fifty from my cheg at.
"What is this writing?" asks my mother in ese.
"Oh, nothing really. Just things we share," I say as casually as I .
And she looks at me and frowns but doesnt say anything. She goes back to reading the list, this time more carefully, moving her finger down each item.
And I feel embarrassed, knowing what shes seeing. Im relieved that she doeshe other half of it, the discussions. Through tless talks, Harold and I reached an uanding about not including personal things like "mascara," and "shaving lotion," "hair spray" or "Bic shavers," "tampons," or "athletes foot powder."
Whe married at city hall, he insisted on paying the fee. I got my friend Robert to take photos. We held a party at our apartment and everybody brought champagne. And when we bought the house, we agreed that I should pay only a pertage of the me based on what I earn and what he earns, and that I should own an equivalent pertage of unity property; this is written in our prenuptial agreement. Since Harold pays more, he had the deg vote on how the house should look. It is sleek, spare, and what he calls "fluid," nothing to disrupt the line, meaning none of my cluttered look. As for vacations, the one we choose together is fifty-fifty. The others Harold pays for, with the uanding that its a birthday or Christmas present, or an anniversary gift.
And weve had philosophical arguments over things that have gray borders, like my birth trol pills, or dinners at home wheertain people who are really his ts or my old friends from college, or food magazihat I subscribe to but he also reads only because hes bored, not because he would have chosen them for himself.
Aill argue about Mirugai, the ot our cat, or my cat, but the cat that was his gift to me for my birthday last year.
"This, you do not share!" exclaims my mother in an astonished voice. And I am startled, thinking she had read my thoughts about Mirugai. But then I see she is pointing to "ice cream" on Harolds list. My mother must remember the i on the fire escape landing, where she found me, shivering and exhausted, sittio that tainer urgitated ice cream. I could and the stuff after that. And then I am startled once again to realize that Harold has never noticed that I do any of the ice cream he brings home every Friday evening.
"Why you do this?"
My mother has a wounded sound in her voice, as if I had put the list up to hurt her. I think how to explain this, recalling the words Harold and I have used with each other in the past: "So we eliminate false dependencies…be equals…love without obligation…" But these are words she could never uand.
So instead I tell my mother this: "I dont really know. Its somethiarted before we got married. And for some reason we opped."
When Harold returns from the store, he starts the charcoal. I unload the groceries, marihe steaks, cook the rice, ahe table. My mother sits on a stool at the granite ter, drinking from a mug of coffee Ive poured for her. Every few minutes she wipes the bottom of the mug with a tissue she keeps stuffed in her sweater sleeve.
During dinner, Harold keeps the versation going. He talks about the plans for the house: the skylights, expanding the deck, planting flower beds of tulips and crocuses, clearing the poison oak, adding another wing, building a Japayle tile bathroom. And then he clears the table and starts stag the plates in the dishwasher.
"Whos ready for dessert?" he asks, reag into the freezer.
"Im full," I say.
"Lena ot eat ice cream," says my mother.
"So it seems. Shes always on a diet."
"No, she never eat it. She doesnt like."
And now Harold smiles and looks at me puzzled, expeg me to translate what my mother has said.
"Its true," I say evenly. "Ive hated ice cream almost all my life."
Harold looks at me, as if I, too, were speaking ese and he could not uand.
"I guess I assumed you were just trying to lose weight…. Oh well."
"She bee so thin now you ot see her," says my mother. "She like a ghost, disappear."
"Thats right! Christ, thats great," exclaims Harold, laughing, relieved in thinking my mother is graciously trying to rescue him.
After dinner, I put towels on the bed in the guest room. My mother is sitting on the bed. The room has Harolds minimalist look to it: the twin bed with plain white sheets and white bla, polished wood floors, a bleached oakwood chair, and nothing on the slanted gray walls.
The only decoration is an odd-looking piece right o the bed: aable made out of a slab of unevenly cut marble and thin crisscrosses of black lacquer wood for the legs. My mother puts her handbag oable and the drical black vase on top starts to wobble. The freesias in the vase quiver.
"Careful, its not too sturdy," I say. The table is a poorly designed piece that Harold made in his student days. Ive always wondered why hes so proud of it. The lines are clumsy. It doesnt bear any of the traits of "fluidity" that are so important to Harold these days.
"What use for?" asks my mother, jiggling the table with her hand. "You put something else on top, everything fall down. wang chihan."
I leave my mother in her room and go back downstairs. Harold is opening the windows to let the night air in. He does this every evening.
"Im cold," I say.
"Whats that?"
"Could you close the windows, please."
He looks at me, sighs and smiles, pulls the windows shut, and then sits down cross-legged on the floor and flips open a magazine. Im sitting on the sofa, seething, and I dont know why. Its not that Harold has done anything wrong. Harold is just Harold.
And before I even do it, I know Im starting a fight that is bigger than I know how to handle. But I do it anyway. I go to the refrigerator and I cross out "ice cream" on Harolds side of the list.
"Whats going on here?"
"I just dont think you should get credit for your ice cream anymore."
He shrugs his shoulders, amused. "Suits me."
"Why do you have to be so goddamn fair!" I shout.
Harold puts his magazine down, now wearing his openmouthed exasperated look. "What is this? Why dont you say whats really the matter?"
"I dont know…. I dont know. Everything…the way we at for everything. What we share. What we dont share. Im so tired of it, adding things up, subtrag, making it e out even. Im sick of it."
"You were the one who wahe cat."
"What are you talking about?"
"All right. If you think Im being unfair about the exterminators, well both pay for it."
"Thats not the point!"
"Then tell me, please, what is the point?"
I start to cry, which I know Harold hates. It always makes him unfortable, angry. He thinks its manipulative. But I t help it, because I realize now that I dont know what the point of this argument is. Am I asking Harold to support me? Am I asking to pay less than half? Do I really think we should stop ating for everything? Wouldnt we tio tally things up in our head? Wouldnt Harold wind up paying more? And then wouldnt I feel worse, less than equal? Or maybe we shouldnt have gotten married in the first place. Maybe Harold is a bad man. Maybe Ive made him this way.
None of it seems right. Nothing makes sense. I admit to nothing and I am in plete despair.
"I just think we have to ge things," I say when I think I trol my voice. Only the rest es out like whining. "We o think about what our marriage is really based on…not this balance sheet, who ohat."
"Shit," Harold says. And then he sighs and leans back, as if he were thinking about this. Finally he says in what sounds like a hurt voice, "Well, I know our marriage is based on a lot more than a balance sheet. A lot more. And if you dont then I think you should think about what else you want, before you ge things."
And now I dont know what to think. What am I saying? Whats he saying? We sit in the room, not saying anything. The air feels muggy. I look out the window, and out in the distance is the valley beh us, a sprinkling of thousands of lights shimmering in the summer fog. And then I hear the sound of glass shattering, upstairs, and a chair scrapes across a wood floor.
Harold starts to get up, but I say, "No, Ill go see."
The door is open, but the room is dark, so I call out, "Ma?"
I see it right away: the marble end table collapsed on top of its spindly black legs. Off to the side is the black vase, the smooth der broken in half, the freesias strewn in a puddle of water.
And then I see my mother sitting by the open window, her dark silhouette against the night sky. She turns around in her chair, but I t see her face.
"Fallen down," she says simply. She doesnt apologize.
"It doesnt matter," I say, and I start to pick up the broken glass shards. "I k would happen."
"Then why you dont stop it?" asks my mother.
And its such a simple question.
Four Directions
Waverly Jong
I had taken my mother out to lunch at my favorite ese restaurant in hopes of putting her in a good mood, but it was a disaster.
Whe at the Four Dires Restaurant, she eyed me with immediate disapproval. "Ai-ya! Whats the matter with your hair?" she said in ese.
"What do you mean, Whats the matter, " I said. "I had it cut." Mr. Rory had styled my hair differently this time, an asymmetrical blunt-line frihat was shorter on the left side. It was fashionable, yet not radically so.
"Looks chopped off," she said. "You must ask for your money back."
I sighed. "Lets just have a nice lunch together, okay?"
She wore her tight-lipped, pinched-nose look as she sed the menu, muttering, "Not too many good things, this menu." Theapped the waiters arm, wiped the length of her chopsticks with her finger, and sniffed: "This greasy thing, do you expect me to eat with it?" She made a show of washing out her rice bowl with hot tea, and then warher restaurant patroed near us to do the same. She told the waiter to make sure the soup was very hot, and of course, it was by her tongues expert estimate "not even lukewarm."
"You should so upset," I said to my mother after she disputed a charge of two extra dollars because she had specified chrysanthemum tea, instead of the regular green tea. "Besides, unnecessary stress isnt good for your heart."
"Nothing is wrong with my heart," she huffed as she kept a disparaging eye on the waiter.
And she was right. Despite all the tension she places on herself—and others—the doctors have proclaimed that my mother, at age sixty-nine, has the blood pressure of a sixteen-year-old and the strength of a horse. And thats what she is. A Horse, born in 1918, destio be obstinate and frank to the point of tactlessness. She and I make a bad bination, because Im a Rabbit, born in 1951, supposedly sensitive, with tendeoward being thin-skinned and skittery at the first sign of criticism.
After our miserable lunch, I gave up the idea that there would ever be a good time to tell her the news: that Rich Schields and I were getting married.
"Why are you so nervous?" my friend Marlene Ferber had asked over the phohe ht. "Its not as if Rich is the scum of the earth. Hes a tax attorney like you, for Chrissake. How she criticize that?"
"You dont know my mother," I said. "She hinks anybody is good enough for anything."
"So elope with the guy," said Marlene.
"Thats what I did with Marvin." Marvin was my first husband, my high school sweetheart.
"So there you go," said Marlene.
"So when my mother found out, she threw her shoe at us," I said. "And that was just for openers."
My mother had never met Rich. In fact, every time I brought up his name—when I said, for instahat Rid I had goo the symphony, that Rich had taken my four-year-old daughter, Shoshana, to the zoo—my mother found a way to ge the subject.
"Did I tell you," I said as we waited for the lunch bill at Four Dires, "what a great time Shoshana had with Rich at the Exploratorium? He—"
"Oh," interrupted my mother, "I didnt tell you. Your father, doctors say maybe need exploratory surgery. But no, now they say everything normal, just too much stipated." I gave up. And then we did the usual routine.
I paid for the bill, with a ten and three ones. My mother pulled back the dollar bills and ted out exact ge, thirtees, and put that oray instead, explaining firmly: "No tip!" She tossed her head back with a triumphant smile. And while my mother used the restroom, I slipped the waiter a five-dollar bill. He o me with deep uanding. While she was gone, I devised another plan.
"Choszle!"—Stinks to death in there!—muttered my mother wheurned. She nudged me with a little travel package of Kleenex. She did not trust other peoples toilet paper. "Do you o use?"
I shook my head. "But before I drop you off, lets stop at my place real quick. Theres something I want to show you."
My mother had not been to my apartment in months. When I was first married, she used to drop by unannounced, until one day I suggested she should call ahead of time. Ever sihen, she has refused to e unless I issue an official invitation.
And so I watched her, seeing her rea to the ges in my apartment—from the pristine habitat I maintained after the divorce, when all of a sudden I had too much time to keep my life in order—to this present chaos, a home full of life and love. The hallway floor was littered with Shoshanas toys, all bright plastic things with scattered parts. There was a set of Richs barbells in the living room, two dirty snifters on the coffee table, the disemboweled remains of a phohat Shoshana and Rich took apart the other day to see where the voices came from.
"Its back here," I said. We kept walking, all the way to the back bedroom. The bed was unmade, dresser drawers were hanging out with socks and ties spilling over. My mother stepped over running shoes, more of Shoshanas toys, Richs black loafers, my scarves, a stack of white shirts just back from the ers.
Her look was one of painful denial, reminding me of a time long ago wheook my brothers and me down to a ic to get our polio booster shots. As the needle went into my brothers arm and he screamed, my mother looked at me with agony written all over her fad assured me, " one doesnt hurt."
But now, how could my mother not notice that we were living together, that this was serious and would not go away even if she didnt talk about it? She had to say something.
I went to the closet and then came back with a mink jacket that Rich had given me for Christmas. It was the most extravagant gift I had ever received.
I put the jacket on. "Its sort of a silly present," I said nervously. "Its hardly ever cold enough in San Francisco to wear mink. But it seems to be a fad, eople are buying their wives and girlfriends these days."
My mother was quiet. She was looking toward my open closet, bulging with racks of shoes, ties, my dresses, and Richs suits. She ran her fingers over the mink.
"This is not so good," she said at last. "It is just leftover strips. And the fur is too short, no long hairs."
"How you criticize a gift!" I protested. I was deeply wounded. "He gave me this from his heart."
"That is why I worry," she said.
And looking at the coat in the mirror, I couldnt fend off the strength of her will anymore, her ability to make me see black where there was once white, white where there was once black. The coat looked shabby, an imitation of romance.
"Arent you going to say anything else?" I asked softly.
"What I should say?"
"About the apartment? About this?" I gestured to all the signs of Rich lying about.
She looked around the room, toward the hall, and finally she said, "You have career. You are busy. You want to live like mess what I say?"
My mother knows how to hit a nerve. And the pain I feel is worse than any other kind of misery. Because what she does always es as a shock, exactly like aric jolt, that grounds itself permaly in my memory. I still remember the first time I felt it.
I was ten years old. Even though I was young, I knew my ability to play chess was a gift. It was effortless, so easy. I could see things on the chessboard that other people could not. I could create barriers to protect myself that were invisible to my oppos. And this gift gave me supreme fidence. I knew what my oppos would do, move for move. I k exactly oint their faces would fall when my seemingly simple and childlike strategy would reveal itself as a devastating and irrevocable course. I loved to win.
And my mother loved to show me off, like one of my many trophies she polished. She used to discuss my games as if she had devised the strategies.
"I told my daughter, Use your horses to ruhe enemy," she informed one shopkeeper. "She won very quickly this way." And of course, she had said this before the game—that and a huher useless things that had nothing to do with my winning.
To our family friends who visited she would fide, "You dont have to be so smart to win chess. It is just tricks. You blow from the North, South, East, a. The other person bees fused. They dont know which way to run."
I hated the way she tried to take all the credit. And one day I told her so, shouting at her on Sto Street, in the middle of a crowd of people. I told her she didnt know anything, so she shouldnt show off. She should shut up. Words to that effect.
That evening and the day she wouldnt speak to me. She would say stiff words to my father and brothers, as if I had bee invisible and she was talking about a rotten fish she had thrown away but which had left behind its bad smell.
I khis strategy, the sneaky way to get someoo pounce ba anger and fall into a trap. So I ignored her. I refused to speak and waited for her to e to me.
After many days had gone by in silence, I sat in my room, staring at the sixty-four squares of my chessboard, trying to think of another way. And thats when I decided to quit playing chess.
Of course I dido quit forever. At most, just for a few days. And I made a show of it. Instead of practig in my room every night, as I always did, I marched into the living room and sat down in front of the televisio with my brothers, who stared at me, an unwele intruder. I used my brothers to further my plan; I cracked my knuckles to annoy them.
"Ma!" they shouted. "Make her stop. Make her go away."
But my mother did not say anything.
Still I was not worried. But I could see I would have to make a stronger move. I decided to sacrifice a tourhat was ing up in one week. I would refuse to play in it. And my mother would certainly have to speak to me about this. Because the sponsors and the benevolent associations would start calling her, asking, shouting, pleading to make me play again.
And theour came a. And she did not e to me, g, "Why are you not playing chess?" But I was g inside, because I learhat a boy whom I had easily defeated on two other occasions had won.
I realized my mother knew more tricks than I had thought. But now I was tired of her game. I wao start practig for the our. So I decided to pretend to let her win. I would be the oo speak first.
"I am ready to play chess again," I annouo her. I had imagined she would smile and then ask me ecial thing I wao eat.
But instead, she gathered her fato a frown and stared into my eyes, as if she could fore kind of truth out of me.
"Why do you tell me this?" she finally said in sharp tones. "You think it is so easy. One day quit, day play. Everything for you is this way. So smart, so easy, so fast."
"I said Ill play," I whined.
"No!" she shouted, and I almost jumped out of my scalp. "It is not so easy anymore."
I was quivering, stunned by what she said, in not knowing what she meant. And then I went bay room. I stared at my chessboard, its sixty-four squares, to figure out how to undo this terrible mess. And after staring like this for many hours, I actually believed that I had made the white squares blad the black squares white, and everything would be all right.
And sure enough, I won her back. That night I developed a high fever, and she sat o my bed, scolding me foing to school without my sweater. In the m she was there as well, feeding me rice pe flavored with chi broth she had strained herself. She said she was feedihis because I had the chi pox and one chi knew how to fight another. And iernoon, she sat in a chair in my room, knitting me a pink sweater while telling me about a sweater that Auntie Suyuan had knit for her daughter June, and how it was most unattractive and of the worst yarn. I was so happy that she had bee her usual self.
But after I got well, I discovered that, really, my mother had ged. She no longer hovered over me as I practiced different chess games. She did not polish my trophies every day. She did not cut out the small neer item that mentioned my was as if she had erected an invisible wall and I was secretly groping each day to see how high and how wide it was.
At my our, while I had done well overall, in the end the points were not enough. I lost. And what was worse, my mother said nothing. She seemed to walk around with this satisfied look, as if it had happened because she had devised this strategy.
I was horrified. I spent many hours every day going over in my mind what I had lost. I k was not just the last tour. I examined every move, every piece, every square. And I could no longer see the secret ons of each piece, the magic withierse of each square. I could see only my mistakes, my weaknesses. It was as though I had lost my magic armor. And everybody could see this, where it was easy to attack me.
Over the few weeks and later months and years, I tio play, but never with that same feeling of supreme fidence. I fought hard, with fear and desperation. When I won, I was grateful, relieved. And when I lost, I was filled with growing dread, and then terror that I was no longer a prodigy, that I had lost the gift and had turned into someone quite ordinary.
When I lost twice to the boy whom I had defeated so easily a few years before, I stopped playing chess altogether. And nobody protested. I was fourteen.
"You know, I really dont uand you," said Marlene when I called her the night after I had shown my mother the mink jacket. "You tell the IRS to piss up a rope, but you t stand up to your own mother."
"I always io and then she says these little sneaky things, smoke bombs and little barbs, and…"
"Why dont you tell her to stop t you," said Marlene. "Tell her to stop ruining your life. Tell her to shut up."
"Thats hilarious," I said with a half-laugh. "You wao tell my mother to shut up?"
"Sure, why not?"
"Well, I dont know if its explicitly stated in the law, but you t ever tell a ese mother to shut up. You could be charged as an accessory to your own murder."
I wasnt so much afraid of my mother as I was afraid for Rich. I already knew what she would do, how she would attack him, how she would criticize him. She would be quiet at first. Then she would say a word about something small, something she had noticed, and then another word, and another, eae flung out like a little piece of sand, one from this dire, another from behind, more and more, until his looks, his character, his soul would have eroded away. And even if I reized her strategy, her sneak attack, I was afraid that some unseen speck of truth would fly into my eye, blur what I was seeing and transform him from the divine man I thought he was into someone quite mundane, mortally wounded with tiresome habits and irritating imperfes.
This happeo my first marriage, to Marvin , with whom I had eloped when I was eighteen and he was een. When I was in love with Marvin, he was nearly perfect. He graduated third in his class at Lowell and got a full scholarship to Stanford. He played tennis. He had bulging calf muscles and one hundred forty-six straight black hairs on his chest. He made everyone laugh and his own laugh was deep, sonorous, masely sexy. He prided himself on having favorite love positions for different days and hours of the week; all he had to whisper was "Wednesday afternoon" and Id shiver.
But by the time my mother had had her say about him, I saw his brain had shrunk from laziness, so that now it was good only for thinking up excuses. He chased golf and tennis balls to run away from family responsibilities. His eye wandered up and down irls legs, so he didnt know how to drive straight home anymore. He liked to tell big jokes to make other people feel little. He made a loud show of leaving ten-dollar tips ters but was stingy with presents to family. He thought waxing his red sports car all afternoon was more important than taking his wife somewhere in it.
My feelings for Marvin never reached the level of hate. No, it was worse in a way. It went from disappoio pt to apathetic boredom. It wasnt until after we separated, on nights when Shoshana was asleep and I was lonely, that I wondered if perhaps my mother had poisoned my marriage.
Thank God, her poison didnt affect my daughter, Shoshana. I almost aborted her, though. When I found out I regnant, I was furious. I secretly referred to my pregnancy as my "growiment," and I dragged Marvin down to the ic so he would have to suffer through this too. It turned out we went to the wrong kind of ic. They made us watch a film, a terrible bit of puritanical brainwash. I saw those little things, babies they called them even at s藏书网even weeks, and they had tiny, tiny fingers. And the film said that the babys translut fingers could move, that we should imagihem ging for life, grasping for a ce, this miracle of life. If they had shown anything else except tiny fingers—so thank God they did. Because Shoshana really was a miracle. She erfect. I found every detail about her to be remarkable, especially the way she flexed and curled her fingers. From the very moment she flung her fist away from her mouth to cry, I knew my feelings for her were inviolable.
But I worried for Rich. Because I knew my feelings for him were vulnerable to being felled by my mothers suspis, passing remarks, and innuendos. And I was afraid of what I would then lose, because Rich Schields adored me in the same way I adored Shoshana. His love was unequivocal. Nothing could ge it. He expected nothing from me; my mere existence was enough. And at the same time, he said that he had ged—for the better—because of me. He was embarrassingly romantic; he insisted he never was until he met me. And this fession made his romantic gestures all the more ennobling. At work, for example, when he would staple "FYI—For Your Information" o legal briefs and corporate returns that I had to review, he sighem at the bottom: "FYI—Forever You & I." The firm didnt know about our relationship, and so that kind of reckless behavior on his part thrilled me.
The sexual chemistry was what really surprised me, though. I thought hed be one of those quiet types who was awkwardly gentle and clumsy, the kind of mild-mannered guy who says, "Am I hurting you?" when I t feel a thing. But he was so attuo my every movement I was sure he was reading my mind. He had no inhibitions, and whatever ones he discovered I had hed pry away from me like little treasures. He saw all those private aspee—and I mean not just sexual private parts, but my darker side, my meanness, my pettiness, my self-loathing—all the things I kept hidden. So that with him I was pletely naked, and when I was, when I was feeling the most vulnerable—when the wrong word would have sent me flying out the door forever—he always said exactly the right thing at the right moment. He didnt allow me to cover myself up. He would grab my hands, look me straight in the eye and tell me something new about why he loved me.
Id never known love so pure, and I was afraid that it would bee sullied by my mother. So I tried to store every one of these endearments about Ri my memory, and I plao call upon them agaihe time was necessary.
After much thought, I came up with a brilliant plan. I cocted a way for Rieet my mother and win her over. In fact, I arra so my mother would want to cook a meal especially for him. I had some help from Auntie Suyuan. Auntie Su was my mothers friend from way back. They were very close, which meant they were ceaselessly tormenting each other with boasts as. And I gave Auntie Su a secret to boast about.
After walking through North Beae Sunday, I suggested to Rich that we stop by for a surprise visit to my Auntie Su and Uncle ing. They lived on Leavenworth, just a few blocks west of my mothers apartment. It was late afternoon, just in time to ca.９9lｉｂ?tch Auntie Su preparing Sunday dinner.
"Stay! Stay!" she had insisted.
"No, no. Its just that we were walking by," I said.
"Already cooked enough for you. See? One soup, four dishes. You do it, only have to throw it away. Wasted!"
How could we refuse? Three days later, Auntie Suyuan had a thank-you letter from Rid me. "Rich said it was the best ese food he has ever tasted," I wrote.
And the day, my mother called me, to invite me to a belated birthday dinner for my father. My brother Vi was bringing his girlfriend, Lisa Lum. I could bring a friend, too.
I knew she would do this, because cooking was how my mother expressed her love, her pride, her power, her proof that she knew more than Auntie Su. "Just be sure to tell her later that her cooking was the best you ever tasted, that it was far better than Auntie Sus," I told Rich. "Believe me."
The night of the dinner, I sat i watg her cook, waiting for the right moment to tell her about our marriage plans, that we had decided to get married July, about seven months away. She was chopping eggplant into wedges, chattering at the same time about Auntie Suyuan: "She only cook looking at a recipe. My instrus are in my fingers. I know what secret ingredients to put in just by using my nose!" And she was slig with such a ferocity, seemingly iive to her sharp cleaver, that I was afraid her fiips would bee one of the ingredients of the red-cooked eggplant and shredded pork dish.
I was hoping she would say something first about Rich. I had seen her expression when she opehe door, her forced smile as she scrutinized him from head to toe, cheg her appraisal of him against that already given to her by Auntie Suyuan. I tried to anticipate what criticisms she would have.
Rich was not only not ese, he was a few years youhan I was. And unfortunately, he looked much younger with his curly red hair, smooth pale skin, and the splash e freckles across his nose. He was a bit on the short side, pactly built. In his dark business suits, he looked easily fettable, like somebodys a funeral. Which was why I didnt notice him the first year we worked together at the firm. But my mother noticed everything.
"So what do you think of Rich?" I finally asked, holding my breath.
She tossed the eggplant i oil and it made a loud, angry hissing sound. "So many spots on his face," she said.
I could feel the pinpriy back. "Theyre freckles. Freckles are good luck, you know," I said a bit too heatedly in trying to raise my voice above the din of the kit.
"Oh?" she said ily.
"Yes, the more spots the better. Everybody knows that."
She sidered this a moment and then smiled and spoke in ese: "Maybe this is true. When you were young, you got the chi pox. So many spots, you had to stay home for ten days. So lucky, you thought."
I couldnt save Ri the kit. And I couldnt save him later at the diable.
He had brought a bottle of French wine, something he did not know my parents could not appreciate. My parents did not even own wineglasses. And then he also made the mistake of drinking not o two frosted glasses full, while everybody else had a half-inch "just for taste."
When I offered Rich a fork, he insisted on using the slippery ivory chopsticks. He held them splayed like the knoeed legs of an ostrich while pig up a large k of sauce-coated eggplant. Halfway between his plate and his open mouth, the k fell on his crisp white shirt and then slid into his crotch. It took several mio get Shoshana to stop shrieking with laughter.
And then he had helped himself to big portions of the shrimp and snow peas, not realizing he should have taken only a polite spoonful, until everybody had had a morsel.
He had deed the saut閑d new greens, the tender and expensive leaves of bean plants plucked before the sprouts turn into beans. And Shoshana refused to eat them also, pointing to Rich: "He didhem! He didhem!"
He thought he was being polite by refusing seds, when he should have followed my fathers example, who made a big show of taking small portions of seds, thirds, and even fourths, always saying he could not resist another bite of something or other, and then groaning that he was so full he thought he would burst.
But the worst was when Rich criticized my mothers cooking, and he didnt even know what he had done. As is the ese cooks y mother always made disparaging remarks about her own cooking. That night she chose to direct it toward her famous steamed pork and preserved vegetable dish, which she always served with special pride.
"Ai! This dish not salty enough, no flavor," she plained, after tasting a small bite. "It is too bad to eat."
This was our familys cue to eat some and proclaim it the best she had ever made. But before we could do so, Rich said, "You know, all it needs is a little soy sauce." And he proceeded to pour a riverful of the salty black stuff on the platter, right before my mothers horrified eyes.
And even though I was hoping throughout the dihat my mother would somehow see Richs kindness, his sense of humor and boyish charm, I knew he had failed miserably in her eyes.
Rich obviously had had a different opinion on how the evening had gone. Whe home that night, after we put Shoshana to bed, he said modestly, "Well. I thi it off A-o-kay." He had the look of a dalmatian, panting, loyal, waiting to be petted.
"Uh-hmm," I said. I utting on an old nightgown, a hint that I was not feeling amorous. I was still shuddering, remembering how Rich had firmly shaken both my parents hands with that same easy familiarity he used with nervous new ts. "Linda, Tim," he said, "well see you again soon, Im sure." My parents names are Lindo and Tin Jong, and nobody, except a few older family friends, ever calls them by their first names.
"So what did she say when you told her?" And I knew he was referring tetting married. I had told Rich earlier that I would tell my mother first a her break the o my father.
"I never had a ce," I said, which was true. How could I have told my mother I was getting married, when at every possible moment we were alone, she seemed to remark on how much expensive wine Rich liked to drink, or how pale and ill he looked, or how sad Shoshana seemed to be.
Rich was smiling. "How long does it take to say, Mom, Dad, Im getting married?"
"You dont uand. You dont uand my mother."
Rich shook his head. "Whew! You say that again. Her English was so bad. You know, when she was talking about that dead guy showing up on Dynasty, I thought she was talking about something that happened in a a long time ago."
That night, after the dinner, I lay iense. I was despairing over this latest failure, made worse by the fact that Rich seemed blind to it all. He looked so pathetic. So pathetic, those words! My mother was doing it again, making me see black where I once saw white. In her hands, I always became the pawn. I could only run away. And she was the queen, able to move in all dires, relentless in her pursuit, always able to find my weakest spots.
I woke up late, with teeth ched and every nerve on edge. Rich was already up, showered, and reading the Sunday paper. "M, doll," he said between noisy munches of flakes. I put on my jogging clothes and headed out the dot into the car, and drove to my parents apartment.
Marlene was right. I had to tell my mother—that I knew what she was doing, her scheming ways of making me miserable. By the time I arrived, I had enough ao fend off a thousand flying cleavers.
My father opehe door and looked surprised to see me. "Wheres Ma?" I asked, trying to keep my breath even. He gestured to the living room in back.
I found her sleeping soundly on the sofa. The back of her head was resting on a white embroidered doily. Her mouth was slad all the lines in her face were gone. With her smooth face, she looked like a young girl, frail, guileless, and i. One arm hung limply down the side of the sofa. Her chest was still. All her strength was gone. She had no ons, no demons surrounding her. She looked powerless. Defeated.
And then I was seized with a fear that she looked like this because she was dead. She had died when I was having terrible thoughts about her. I had wished her out of my life, and she had acquiesced, floating out of her body to escape my terrible hatred.
"Ma!" I said sharply. "Ma!" I whined, starting to cry.
And her eyes slowly opened. She blinked. Her hands moved with life. "Shemma? Meimei-ah? Is that you?"
I eechless. She had not called me Meimei, my childhood name, in many years. She sat up and the lines in her face returned, only now they seemed less harsh, soft creases of worry. "Why are you here? Why are y? Something has happened!"
I didnt know what to do or say. In a matter of seds, it seemed, I had gone from being angered by her strength, to being amazed by her innoce, and then frightened by her vulnerability. And now I felt numb, strangely weak, as if someone had unplugged me and the current running through me had stopped.
"Nothings happened. Nothings the matter. I dont know why Im here," I said in a hoarse voice. "I wao talk to you….I wao tell you…Rid I are getting married."
I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting to hear her protests, her laments, the dry voice delivering some sort of painful verdict.
"Jrdaule"—I already know this—she said, as if to ask why I was tellihis again.
"You know?"
"Of course. Even if you didnt tell me," she said simply.
This was worse than I had imagined. She had known all along, when she criticized the mink jacket, when she belittled his freckles and plained about his drinking habits. She disapproved of him. "I know you hate him," I said in a quavering voice. "I know you think hes not good enough, but I…"
"Hate? Why do you think I hate your future husband?"
"You never want to talk about him. The other day, when I started to tell you about him and Shoshana at the Exploratorium, you…you ged the subject…you started talking about Dads exploratory surgery and then…"
"What is more important, explore fun or explore siess?"
I wasnt going to let her escape this time. "And then when you met him, you said he had spots on his face."
She looked at me, puzzled. "Is this not true?"
"Yes, but, you said it just to be mean, to hurt me, to…"
"Ai-ya, why do you think these bad things about me?" Her face looked old and full of sorrow. "So you think your mother is this bad. You think I have a secret meaning. But it is you who has this meaning. Ai-ya! She thinks I am this bad!" She sat straight and proud on the sofa, her mouth clamped tight, her hands clasped together, her eyes sparkling with angry tears.
Oh, her strength! her weakness!—both pulling me apart. My mind was flying one way, my heart another. I sat down on the sofa o her, the two of us stri by the other.
I felt as if I had lost a battle, but ohat I didnt know I had been fighting. I was weary. "Im going home," I finally said. "Im not feeling too ght now."
"You have bee ill?" she murmured, putting her hand on my forehead.
"No," I said. I wao leave. "I…I just dont know whats inside me right now."
"Then I will tell you," she said simply. And I stared at her. "Half of everything inside you," she explained in ese, "is from your fathers side. This is natural. They are the Jong , tonese people. Good, ho people. Although sometimes they are bad-tempered and stingy. You know this from your father, how he be unless I remind him."
And I was thinking to myself, Why is she tellihis? What does this have to do with anything? But my mother tio speak, smiling broadly, sweeping her hand. "And half of everything inside you is from me, your mothers side, from the Sun in Taiyuan." She wrote the characters out on the back of an envelope, fetting that I ot read ese.
"We are a smart people, very strong, tricky, and famous for winning wars. You know Sun Yat-sen, hah?"
I nodded.
"He is from the Sun . But his family moved to the south mauries ago, so he is ly the same . My family has always live in Taiyuan, from before the days of even Sun Wei. Do you know Sun Wei?"
I shook my head. And although I still didnt know where this versation was going, I felt soothed. It seemed like the first time we had had an almost normal versation.
"He went to battle with Genghis Khan. And when the Mongol soldiers shot at Sun Weis warriors—heh!—their arrows bounced off the shields like rain on stone. Sun Wei had made a kind of armor s Genghis Khan believed it was magic!"
"Genghis Khan must have ied some magic arrows, then," I said. "After all, he quered a."
My mother acted as if she hadnt heard me right. "This is true, we always know how to win. So now you know what is inside you, almost all good stuff from Taiyuan."
"I guess weve evolved to just winning ioy aronics market," I said.
"How do you know this?" she asked eagerly.
"You see it ohing. Made in Taiwan."
"Ai!" she cried loudly. "Im not from Taiwan!"
And just like that, the fragile e we were starting to build snapped.
"I was born in a, in Taiyuan," she said. "Taiwan is not a."
"Well, I only thought you said Taiwan because it sounds the same," I argued, irritated that she set by su uional mistake.
"Sound is pletely different! try is pletely different!" she said in a huff. "People there only dream that it is a, because if you are ese you ever let go of a in your mind."
We sank into silence, a stalemate. And then her eyes lighted up. "Now listen. You also say the name of Taiyuan is Bing. Everyone from that city calls it that. Easier for you to say. Bing, it is a niame."
She wrote down the character, and I nodded as if this made everything perfectly clear. "The same as here," she added in English. "You call Apple for New York. Frisco for San Francisco."
"Nobody calls San Francisco that!" I said, laughing. "People who call it that dont know aer."
"Now you uand my meaning," said my mother triumphantly.
I smiled.
And really, I did uand finally. Not what she had just said. But what had been true all along.
I saw what I had been fighting for: It was for me, a scared child, who had run away a long time ago to what I had imagined was a safer place. And hiding in this place, behind my invisible barriers, I knew what lay oher side: Her side attacks. Her secret ons. Her uny ability to find my weakest spots. But in the brief instant that I had peered over the barriers I could finally see what was really there: an old woman, a wok for her armor, a knitting needle for her swetting a little crabby as she waited patiently for her daughter to invite her in.
Rid I have decided to postpone our wedding. My mother says July is not a good time to go to a on our honeymoon. She knows this because she and my father have just returned from a trip to Beijing and Taiyuan.
"It is too hot in the summer. You will only grow more spots and then your whole face will bee red!" she tells Rich. And Rich grins, gestures his thumb toward my mother, and says to me, " you believe what es out of her mouth? Now I know where you get your sweet, tactful nature."
"You must go in October. That is the best time. Not too hot, not too cold. I am thinking of going back then too," she says authoritatively. And then she hastily adds: "Of course not with you!"
I laugh nervously, and Rich jokes: "Thatd be great, Lindo. You could translate all the menus for us, make sure were ing snakes s by mistake." I almost kick him.
"No, this is not my meaning," insists my mother. "Really, I am not asking."
And I know what she really means. She would love to go to a with us. And I would hate it. Three weeks worth of her plaining about dirty chopsticks and cold soup, three meals a day—well, it would be a disaster.
Yet part of me also thinks the whole idea makes perfect sehe three of us, leaving our differences behind, stepping on the plaogether, sitting side by side, lifting off, movio reach the East.
Without Wood
Rose Hsu Jordan
I used to believe everything my mother said, even when I didnt know what she meant. Once when I was little, she told me she k would rain because lost ghosts were cirg near our windows, calling "Woo-woo" to be let in. She said doors would unlock themselves in the middle of the night unless we checked twice. She said a mirror could see only my face, but she could see me i even when I was not in the room.
And all these things seemed true to me. The power of her words was that strong.
She said that if I listeo her, later I would know what she knew: where true words came from, always from up high, above everything else. And if I didnt listen to her, she said my ear would bend too easily to other people, all saying words that had no lasting meaning, because they came from the bottom of their hearts, where their own desires lived, a place where I could not belong.
The words my mother spoke did e from up high. As I recall, I was always looking up at her face as I lay on my pillow. In those days my sisters and I all slept in the same double bed. Janice, my oldest sister, had an allergy that made one nostril sing like a bird at night, so we called her Whistling Nose. Ruth was Ugly Foot because she could spread her toes out in the shape of a witchs claw. I was Scaredy Eyes because I would squeeze shut my eyes so I wouldnt have to see the dark, which Janid Ruth said was a dumb thing to do. During those early years, I was the last to fall asleep. I g to the bed, refusing to leave this world for dreams.
"Your sisters have already goo see Old Mr. Chou," my mother would whisper in ese. Acc to my mother, Old Mr. Chou was the guardian of a door that opened into dreams. "Are you ready to go see Old Mr. Chou, too?" And every night I would shake my head.
"Old Mr. Chou takes me to bad places," I cried.
Old Mr. Chou took my sisters to sleep. They never remembered anything from the night before. But Old Mr. Chou would swing the door wide open for me, and as I tried to walk in, he would slam it fast, hoping to squash me like a fly. Thats why I would always dart bato wakefulness.
But eventually Old Mr. Chou would get tired and leave the door unwatched. The bed would grow heavy at the top and slowly tilt. And I would slide headfirst, in through Old Mr. Chous door, and land in a house without doors or windows.
I remember oime I dreamt of falling through a hole in Old Mr. Chous floor. I found myself in a nighttime garden and Old Mr. Chou was shouting, "Whos in my backyard?" I ran away. Soon I found myself stomping on plants with veins of blood, running through fields of snapdragons that ged colors like stoplights, until I came to a giant playground filled with row after row of square sandboxes. In each sandbox was a new doll. And my mother, who was not there but could see me i, told Old Mr. Chou she knew which doll I would pick. So I decided to pie that was entirely different.
"Stop her! Stop her!" cried my mother. As I tried to run away, old Mr. Chou chased me, shouting, "See what happens when you dont listen to your mother!" And I became paralyzed, too scared to move in any dire.
The m, I told my mother what happened, and she laughed and said, "Dont pay attention to Old Mr. Chou. He is only a dream. You only have to listen to me."
And I cried, "But Old Mr. Chou listens to you too."
More than thirty years later, my mother was still trying to make me listen. A month after I told her that Ted and I were getting a divorce, I met her at church, at the funeral of a Mary, a wonderful wo-year-old woman who had played godmother to every child who passed through the doors of the First ese Baptist Church.
"Yetting too thin," my mother said in her pained voice when I sat dowo her. "You must eat more."
"Im fine," I said, and I smiled for proof. "And besides, wasnt it you who said my clothes were always too tight?"
"Eat more," she insisted, and then she nudged me with a little spiral-bound book hand-titled "Cooking the ese Way by a Mary ." They were selling them at the door, only five dollars each, to raise money for the Refugee Scholarship Fund.
The an music stopped and the minister cleared his throat. He was not the regular pastor; I reized him as Wing, a boy who used to steal baseball cards with my brother Luke. Only later Wio divinity school, thanks to a Mary, and Luke went to the ty jail for selling stolen car stereos.
"I still hear her voice," Wing said to the mourners. "She said God made me with all the right ingredients, so itd be a shame if I burned in hell."
"Already cre-mated," my mother whispered matter-of-factly, nodding toward the altar, where a framed color photo of a Mary stood. I held my fio my lips the way librarians do, but she did.
"That one, we bought it." She ointing to a large spray of yellow chrysanthemums and red roses. "Thirty-four dollars. All artificial, so it will last forever. You pay me later. Janid Matthew also chip in some. You have money?"
"Yes, Ted sent me a check."
Then the minister asked everyoo bow in prayer. My mother was quiet at last, dabbing her h Kleenex while the mialked: "I just see her now,.. wowing the angels with her ese cooking and gung-ho attitude."
And when heads lifted, everyone rose to sing hymn number 335, a Marys favorite: "You be an an-gel, ev-ery day oh…"
But my mother was not singing. She was staring at me. "Why does he send you a check?" I kept looking at the hymnal, singing: "Send-ing rays of sun-shine, full of joy from birth."
And so she grimly answered her owion: "He is doing monkey business with someone else."
Monkey business? Ted? I wao laugh—her choice of words, but also the idea! Cool, silent, hairless Ted, whose breathing pattern didnt alter o in the height of passion? I could just see him, grunting "Ooh-ooh-ooh" while scratg his armpits, then boung and shrieking across the mattress trying to grab a breast.
"No, I dont think so," I said.
"Why not?"
"I dont think we should talk about Ted now, not here."
"Why you talk about this with a psyche-atrid not with mother?"
"Psychiatrist."
"Psyche-atricks," she corrected herself.
"A mother is best. A mother knows what is inside you," she said above the singing voices. "A psyche-atricks will only make you hulihudu, make you see heimongmong."
Bae, I thought about what she said. And it was true. Lately I had been feeling hulihudu. And everything around me seemed to be heimongmong. These were words I had hought about in English terms. I suppose the closest in meaning would be "fused" and "dark fog."
But really, the words mean much more than that. Maybe they t be easily translated because they refer to a sensation that only ese people have, as if you were falling headfirst through Old Mr. Chous door, then trying to find your way back. But youre so scared you t open your eyes, so you get on your hands and knees and grope in the dark, listening for voices to tell you which way to go.
I had been talking to too many people, my friends, everybody it seems, except Ted. To each person I told a different story. Yet each version was true, I was certain of it, at least at the moment that I told it.
To my friend Waverly, I said I never knew how much I loved Ted until I saw how much he could hurt me. I felt such pain, literally a physical pain, as if someone had torn off both my arms without ahesia, without sewing me back up.
"Have you ever had them torn off with ahesia? God! Ive never seen you so hysterical," said Waverly. "You want my opinion, youre better off without him. It hurts only because its taken you fifteen years to see what aional wimp he is. Listen, I know what it feels like."
To my friend Lena, I said I was better off without Ted. After the initial shock, I realized I didnt miss him at all. I just missed the way I felt when I was with him.
"Which was what?" Lena gasped. "You were depressed. You were manipulated into thinking you were nothio him. And now you think youre nothing without him. If I were you, Id get the name of a good lawyer and go for everything you . Get even."
I told my psychiatrist I was obsessed with revenge. I dreamt of calling Ted up and inviting him to dio one of those trendy whos-who places, like caf?Majestic or Rosalies. And after he started the first course and was nid relaxed, I would say, "Its not that easy, Ted." From my purse I would take out a voodoo doll which Lena had already lent me from her props department. I would aim my escargot fork at a strategic spot on the voodoo doll and I would say, out loud, in front of all the fashionable restaurant patrons, "Ted, youre just su impotent bastard and Im going to make sure you stay that way."Wham!
Saying this, I felt I had raced to the top of a big turning point in my life, a new me after just two weeks of psychotherapy. But my psychiatrist just looked bored, his hand still propped under his . "It seems youve been experieng some very powerful feelings," he said, sleepy-eyed. "I think we should think about them more week."
And so I didnt know what to think anymore. For the few weeks, I ioried my life, going from room to ro to remember the history of everything in the house: things I had collected before I met Ted (the hand-blown glasses, the macrame wall hangings, and the rocker I had reed); things we bought together right after we were married (most of the big furniture); things people gave us (the glass-domed clock that no longer worked, three sake sets, four teapots); things he picked out (the signed lithographs, none of them beyond wenty-five in a series of two hundred fifty, the Steuben crystal strawberries); and things I picked out because I couldo see them left behind (the mismatched dlestick holders from garage sales, an antique quilt with a hole in it, odd-shaped vials that once tained ois, spices, and perfumes).
I had started to iory the bookshelves when I got a letter from Ted, a ually, written hurriedly in ballpoint on his prescription notepad. "Sign 4x where indicated," it read. And then in fountain-pen blue ink, "enc: check, to tide you over until settlement."
The note was clipped to our divorce papers, along with a check for ten thousand dollars, signed in the same fountain-pen blue ink oe. And instead of being grateful, I was hurt.
Why had he sent the check with the papers? Why the two different pens? Was the che afterthought? How long had he sat in his office determining how much money was enough? And why had he chosen to sign it with that pen?
I still remember the look on his face last year when he carefully undid the gold foil , the surprise in his eyes as he slowly examined every angle of the pen by the light of the Christmas tree. He kissed my forehead. "Ill use it only to sign important things," he had promised me.
Remembering that, holding the check, all I could do was sit on the edge of the couch feeling my head getting heavy at the top. I stared at the xs on the divorce papers, the w on the prescription notepad, the two colors of ink, the date of the check, the careful way in which he wrote, "Ten thousand only and s."
I sat there quietly, trying to listen to my heart, to make the right decision. But then I realized I didnt know what the choices were. And so I put the papers and the check away, in a drawer where I kept store coupons which I hrew away and which I never used either.
My mother oold me why I was so fused all the time. She said I was without wood. Born without wood so that I listeo too many people. She khis, because once she had almost bee this way.
"A girl is like a young tree," she said. "You must stand tall and listen to your mother standio you. That is the only way to grow strong and straight. But if you bend to listen to other people, you will grow crooked and weak. You will fall to the ground with the first strong wind. And then you will be like a weed, growing wild in any dire, running along the ground until someone pulls you out and throws you away."
But by the time she told me this, it was too late. I had already begun to bend. I had started going to school, where a teacher named Mrs. Berry lined us up and marched us in and out of rooms, up and down hallways while she called out, "Boys and girls, follow me." And if you didnt listen to her, she would make you bend over and whack you with a yardstick ten times.
I still listeo my mother, but I also learned how to let her words blow through me. And sometimes I filled my mind with other peoples thoughts—all in English—so that when she looked at me i, she would be fused by what she saw.
Over the years, I learo choose from the best opinions. ese people had ese opinions. Ameri people had Ameri opinions. And in almost every case, the Ameri version was much better.
It was only later that I discovered there was a serious flaw with the Ameri version. There were too many choices, so it was easy to get fused and pick the wrong thing. Thats how I felt about my situation with Ted. There was so much to think about, so much to decide. Each deeant a turn in another dire.
The check, for example. I wondered if Ted was really trying to trick me, to get me to admit that I was giving up, that I wouldnt fight the divorce. And if I cashed it, he might later say the amount was the whole settlement. Then I got a little seal and imagined, only for a moment, that he had seen thousand dollars because he truly loved me; he was telling me in his own way how much I meant to him. Until I realized that ten thousand dollars was nothing to him, that I was nothing to him.
I thought about putting ao this torture and signing the divorce papers. And I was just about to take the papers out of the coupon drawer when I remembered the house.
I thought to myself, I love this house. The big oak door that opens into a foyer filled with stained-glass windows. The sunlight in the breakfast room, the south view of the city from the front parlor. The herb and flarden Ted had planted. He used to work in the garden every weekend, kneeling on a green rubber pad, obsessively iing every leaf as if he were manig fingernails. He assigned plants to certain planter boxes. Tulips could not be mixed with perennials. A cutting of aloe vera that Lena gave me did not belong anywhere because we had no other sucts.
I looked out the window and saw the calla lilies had fallen and turned brown, the daisies had been crushed down by their ow, the lettuce goo seed. Runner weeds were growiween the flagstone walkways that wouween the planter boxes. The whole thing had grown wild from months of .
And seeing the garden in this fotten dition reminded me of something I once read in a fortune cookie: When a husband stops paying attention to the gardehinking of pulling up roots. When was the last time Ted pruhe rosemary back? When was the last time he squirted Snail B-Gone around the flower beds?
I quickly walked down to the garden shed, looking for pesticides and weed killer, as if the amou itle, the expiration date, anything would give me some idea of what was happening in my life. And then I put the bottle down. I had the sense someone was watg me and laughing.
I went ba the house, this time to call a lawyer. But as I started to dial, I became fused. I put the receiver down. What could I say? What did I want from divorce—when I never knew what I had wanted from marriage?
The m, I was still thinking about my marriage: fifteen years of living in Teds shadow. I lay in bed, my eyes squeezed shut, uo make the simplest decisions.
I stayed in bed for three days, getting up only to go to the bathroom or to heat up another of chi noodle soup. But mostly I slept. I took the sleeping pills Ted had left behind in the medie et. And for the first time I recall, I had no dreams. All I could remember was falling smoothly into a dark space with no feeling of dimension or dire. I was the only person in this blaess. And every time I woke up, I took another pill a back to this place.
But on the fourth day, I had a nightmare. In the dark, I couldnt see Old Mr. Chou, but he said he would find me, and when he did, he would squish me into the ground. He was sounding a bell, and the louder the bell rang the closer he was to finding me. I held my breath to keep from screaming, but the bell got louder and louder until I burst awake.
It was the pho must have rung for an hour nonstop. I picked it up.
"Now that you are up, I am bringing you leftover dishes," said my mother. She sounded as if she could see me now. But the room was dark, the curtains closed tight.
"Ma, I t…" I said. "I t see you now. Im busy."
"Too busy for mother?"
"I have an appoi…with my psychiatrist."
She was quiet for a while. "Why do you not speak up for yourself?" she finally said in her pained voice. "Why you not talk to your husband?"
"Ma," I said, feeling drained. "Please. Dont tell me to save my marriage anymore. Its hard enough as it is."
"I am not telling you to save your marriage," she protested. "I only say you should speak up."
When I hung up, the ph again. It was my psychiatrists receptionist. I had missed my appoihat m, as well as two days ago. Did I want to reschedule? I said I would look at my schedule and call back.
And five minutes later the ph again.
"Whereve you been?" It was Ted.
I began to shake. "Out," I said.
"Ive been trying to reach you for the last three days. I even called the phone pany to check the line."
And I knew he had dohat, not out of any for me, but because when he wants something, he gets impatient and irrational about people who make him wait.
"You know its been two weeks," he said with obvious irritation.
"Two weeks?"
"You havent cashed the check or returhe papers. I wao be nice about this, Rose. I get someoo officially serve the papers, you know."
"You ?"
And then without missing a beat, he proceeded to say what he really wanted, which was more despicable than all the terrible things I had imagined.
He wahe papers returned, signed. He wahe house. He wahe whole thing to be over as soon as possible. Because he wao get married again, to someone else.
Before I could stop myself, I gasped. "You mean you were doing monkey business with someone else?" I was so humiliated I almost started to cry.
And then for the first time in months, after being in limbo all that time, everything stopped. All the questions: gohere were no choices. I had ay feeling—and I felt free, wild. From high inside my head I could hear someone laughing.
"Whats so funny?" said Ted angrily.
"Sorry," I said. "Its just that…" and I was trying hard to stifle my giggles, but one of them escaped through my h a snort, which made me laugh more. And then Teds silence made me laugh even harder.
I was still gasping when I tried to begin again in a more even voice: "Listen, Ted, sorry…I think the best thing is for you to e over after work." I didnt know why I said that, but I felt right saying it.
"Theres nothing to talk about, Rose."
"I know," I said in a voice so calm it surprised even me. "I just want to show you something. And dont worry, youll get your papers. Believe me."
I had no plan. I didnt know what I would say to him later. I knew only that I waed to see me one more time before the divorce.
What I ended up showing him was the garden. By the time he arrived, the late-afternoon summer fog had already blown in. I had the divorce papers in the pocket of my windbreaker. Ted was shivering in his sports jacket as he surveyed the damage to the garden.
"What a mess," I heard him mutter to himself, trying to shake his pant leg loose of a blackberry vihat had meandered onto the walkway. And I knew he was calculating how long it would take to get the place bato order.
"I like it this way," I said, patting the tops of rown carrots, their e heads pushing through the earth as if about to be born. And then I saw the weeds: Some had sprouted in and out of the cracks iio. Others had anchored on the side of the house. And even more had found refuge under loose shingles and were on their way to climbing up to the roof. No way to pull them out oheyve buried themselves in the masonry; youd end up pulling the whole building down.
Ted ig up plums from the ground and tossing them over the feo the neighbors yard. "Where are the papers?" he finally said.
I hahem to him auffed them in the inside pocket of his jacket. He faced me and I saw his eyes, the look I had once mistaken for kindness and prote. "You dont have to move ht away," he said. "I know youll want at least a month to find a place."
"Ive already found a place," I said quickly, because right then I knew where I was going to live. His eyebrows raised in surprise and he smiled—for the briefest moment—until I said, "Here."
"Whats that?" he said sharply. His eyebrows were still up, but now there was no smile.
"I said Im staying here," I announced again.
"Who says?" He folded his arms across his chest, squinted his eyes, examining my face as if he k would crack at any moment. That expression of his used to terrify me into stammers.
Now I felt nothing, no fear, no anger. "I say Im staying, and my lawyer will too, once we serve you the papers," I said.
Ted pulled out the divorce papers and stared at them. His xs were still there, the blanks were still blank. "What do you think youre doily what?" he said.
And the ahe ohat was important above everything else, ran through my body and fell from my lips: "You t just pull me out of your life and throw me away."
I saw what I wanted: his eyes, fused, then scared. He was hulihudu. The power of my words was that strong.
That night I dreamt I was wandering through the garden. The trees and bushes were covered with mist. And then I spotted Old Mr. Chou and my mother off in the distaheir busy movements swirling the fog around them. They were bending over one of the planter boxes.
"There she is!" cried my mother. Old Mr. iled at me and waved. I walked up to my mother and saw that she was h over something, as if she were tending a baby.
"See," she said, beaming. "I have just plahem this m, some for you, some for me."
And below the heimongmong, all along the ground, were weeds already spilling out over the edges, running wild in every dire.
Without Wood Up
Best Quality
Jing-Mei Woo
Five months ago, after a crab dinner celebrating ese New Year, my mave me my "lifes importance," a jade pendant on a gold . The pendant was not a piece of jewelry I would have chosen for myself. It was almost the size of my little finger, a mottled green and white color, intricately carved. To me, the whole effect looked wrong: toe, too green, too garishly ornate. I stuffed the neckla my lacquer box and fot about it.
But these days, I think about my lifes importance. I wonder what it means, because my mother died three months ago, six days before my thirty-sixth birthday. And shes the only person I could have asked, to tell me about lifes importao help me uand my grief.
I now wear that pendant every day. I think the carvings mean something, because shapes aails, which I never seem to notitil after theyre pointed out to me, always mean something to ese people. I know I could ask Auntie Lindo, Auntie An-mei, or other ese friends, but I also know they would tell me a meaning that is different from what my mother intended. What if they tell me this curving line brang into three oval shapes is a pomegranate and that my mother was wishing me fertility and posterity? What if my mother really meant the carvings were a branch of pears to give me purity and hoy? Or ten-thousand-year droplets from the magic mountain, giving me my lifes dire and a thousand years of fame and immortality?
And because I think about this all the time, I always notice other people wearing these same jade pendants—not the flat regular medallions or the round white ones with holes in the middle but ones like mine, a two-inch oblong ht apple green. Its as though we were all sworn to the same secret ant, so secret we dont even know what we belong to. Last weekend, for example, I saw a bartender wearing one. As I fingered mine, I asked him, "Whered you get yours?"
"My mave it to me," he said.
I asked him why, which is a nosy question that only one ese person ask another; in a crowd of Caucasians, two ese people are already like family.
"She gave it to me after I got divorced. I guess my mothers telling me Im still worth something."
And I knew by the wonder in his voice that he had no idea what the pendant really meant.
At last years ese New Year dinner, my mother had cooked eleven crabs, one crab for each person, plus ara. She and I had bought them on Sto Street in atown. We had walked doweep hill from my parents flat, which was actually the first floor of a six-unit building they owned on Leavenworth near California. Their place was only six blocks from where I worked as a copywriter for a small ad agency, so two or three times a week I would drop by after work. My mother always had enough food to insist that I stay for dinner.
That year, ese New Year fell on a Thursday, so I got off work early to help my mother shop. My mother was seventyone, but she still walked briskly along, her small body straight and purposeful, carrying a colorful flowery plastic bag. I dragged the metal shopping cart behind.
Every time I went with her to atown, she pointed out other ese women her age. "Hong Kong ladies," she said, eyeing two finely dressed women in long, dark mink coats and perfect black hairdos. "tonese, village people," she whispered as we passed women in knitted caps, bent over in layers of padded tops and mes. And my mother—wearing lightblue polyester pants, a red sweater, and a childs green down jacket—she didnt look like anybody else. She had e here in 1949, at the end of a long jourhat started in Kweilin in 1944; she had gone north to gking, where she met my father, and then they went southeast to Shanghai and fled farther south to Hong Kong, where the boat departed for San Frany mother came from many different dires.
And now she was huffing plaints in rhythm to her walk downhill. "Even you dont want them, you stuck," she said. She was fuming again about the tenants who lived on the sed floor. Two years ago, she had tried to evict them on the pretext that relatives from a were ing to live there. But the couple saw through her ruse to get arou trol. They said they wouldnt budge until she produced the relatives. And after that I had to listen to her ret every new injustice this couple inflicted on her.
My mother said the gray-haired man put too many bags in the garbage s: "e extra."
And the woman, a very elegant artist type with blond hair, had supposedly paihe apartment in terrible red and green colors. "Awful," moaned my mother. "And they take bath, two three times every day. Running the water, running, running, running, op!"
"Last week," she said, growing a each step, "the waigoren accuse me." She referred to all Caucasians as waigoren, fners. "They say I put poison in a fish, kill that cat."
"What cat?" I asked, even though I kly whie she was talking about. I had seen that cat many times. It was a big one-eared tom with gray stripes who had learo jump oside sill of my mothers kit window. My mother would stand oiptoes and bang the kit window to scare the cat away. And the cat would stand his ground, hissing ba respoo her shouts.
"That cat always raising his tail to put a stink on my door," plained my mother.
I once saw her chase him from her stairwell with a pot of boiling water. I was tempted to ask if she really had put poison in a fish, but I had learned o take sides against my mother.
"So what happeo that cat?" I asked.
"That cat gone! Disappear!" She threw her hands in the air and smiled, looking pleased for a moment before the scowl came back. "And that man, he raise his hand like this, show me his ugly fist and call me worst Fukien landlady. I not from Fukien. Hunh! He know nothing!" she said, satisfied she had put him in his place.
On Sto Street, we wandered from one fish store to another, looking for the liveliest crabs.
"Do a dead one," warned my mother in ese. "Even a beggar wo a dead one."
I poked the crabs with a pencil to see how feisty they were. If a crab grabbed on, I lifted it out and into a plastic sack. I lifted one crab this way, only to find one of its legs had been clamped onto by another crab. In the brief tug-of-war, my crab lost a limb.
"Put it back," whispered my mother. "A missing leg is a bad sign on ese New Year."
But a man in a white smock came up to us. He started talking loudly to my mother in tonese, and my mother, who spoke tonese so poorly it sounded just like her Mandarin, was talking loudly back, pointing to the crab and its missing leg. And after more sharp words, that crab and its leg were put into our sack.
"Doesnt matter," said my mother. "This number elevera one."
Bae, my mother uned the crabs from their neer liners and then dumped them into a sinkful of cold water. She brought out her old wooden board and cleaver, then chopped the ginger and scallions, and poured soy saud sesame oil into a shallow dish. The kit smelled of wet neers and ese fragrances.
Then, one by one, she grabbed the crabs by their back, hoisted them out of the sink and shook them dry and awake. The crabs flexed their legs in midair between sink and stove. She stacked the crabs in a multileveled steamer that sat over two burners oove, put a lid on top, and lit the burners. I couldo watch so I went into the dining room.
When I was eight, I had played with a crab my mother had brought home for my birthday dinner. I had poked it, and jumped back every time its claws reached out. And I determihat the crab and I had e to a great uanding when it finally heaved itself up and walked clear across the ter. But before I could even decide what to name my new pet, my mother had dropped it into a pot of cold water and placed it oall stove. I had watched with growing dread, as the water heated up and the pot began to clatter with this crab trying to tap his way out of his own hot soup. To this day, I remember that crab screaming as he thrust one bright red claw out over the side of the bubbling pot. It must have been my own voice, because now I know, of course, that crabs have no vocal cords. And I also try to vince myself that they dont have enough brains to know the differeween a hot bath and a slow death.
For our New Year celebration, my mother had invited her longtime friends Lindo and Tin Jong. Without even asking, my mother khat meant including the Jongs children: their son Vi, who was thirty-eight years old and still living at home, and their daughter, Waverly, who was around my age. Vi called to see if he could als his girlfriend, Lisa Lum. Waverly said she would bring her new fianc? Rich Schields, who, like Waverly, was a tax attor Price Waterhouse. And she added that Shoshana, her four-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, wao know if my parents had a VCR so she could watch Pinocchio, just in case she got bored. My mother also reminded me to invite Mr. g, my old piano teacher, who still lived three blocks away at our old apartment.
Including my mother, father, ahat made eleven people. But my mother had ted only ten, because to her way of thinking Shoshana was just a child and didnt t, at least not as far as crabs were ed. She hadnt sidered that Waverly might not think the same way.
When the platter of steaming crabs assed around, Waverly was first and she picked the best crab, the brightest, the plumpest, and put it on her daughters plate. And then she picked the best for Rid anood one for herself. And because she had learhis skill, of choosing the best, from her mother, it was only natural that her mother knew how to pick the -best ones for her husband, her son, his girlfriend, and herself. And my mother, of course, sidered the four remaining crabs and gave the ohat looked the best to Old g, because he was nearly y and deserved that kind of respect, and then she picked anood one for my father. That left two on the platter: a large crab with a faded e color, and number eleven, which had the torn-off leg.
My mother shook the platter in front of me. "Take it, already cold," said my mother.
I was not too fond of crab, every since I saw my birthday crab boiled alive, but I knew I could not refuse. Thats the way ese mothers show they love their children, not through hugs and kisses but with stern s of steamed dumplings, ducks gizzards, and crab.
I thought I was doing the right thing, taking the crab with the missing leg. But my mother cried, "No! No! Big one, you eat it. I ot finish."
I remember the hungry sounds everybody else was making—crag the shells, sug the crab meat out, scraping out tidbits with the ends of chopsticks—and my mothers quiet plate. I was the only one who noticed her prying open the shell, sniffing the crabs body and theing up to go to the kit, plate in hand. She returned, without the crab, but with more bowls of soy sauce, ginger, and scallions.
And then as stomachs filled, everybody started talking at once.
"Suyuan!" called Auntie Lindo to my mother. "Why you wear that color?" Auntie Lindo gestured with a crab leg to my mothers red sweater.
"How you wear this color anymore? Too young!" she scolded.
My mother acted as though this were a pliment. "Emporium Capwell," she said. "een dollar. Cheaper than knit it myself."
Auntie Lindo nodded her head, as if the color were worth this price. And then she pointed her crab leg toward her future son-in-law, Rich, and said, "See how this one doesnt know how to eat ese food."
"Crab isnt ese," said Waverly in her plaining voice. It was amazing how Waverly still souhe way she did twenty-five years ago, when we were ten and she had annouo me in that same voice, "You arent a genius like me."
Auntie Lindo looked at her daughter with exasperation. "How do you know99lｉｂ? what is ese, what is not ese?" And theuro Rid said with much authority, "Why you are ing the best part?"
And I saw Rich smiling back, with amusement, and not humility, showing in his face. He had the same c as the crab on his plate: reddish hair, pale cream skin, and large dots e freckles. While he smirked, Auntie Lindo demonstrated the proper teique, poking her chopstito the e spongy part: "You have to dig in here, get this out. The brain is most tastiest, you try."
Waverly and Rich grimaced at each other, united in disgust. I heard Vi and Lisa whisper to each other, "Gross," and then they snickered too.
Uin started laughing to himself, to let us know he also had a private joke. Judging by his preamble of snorts and leg slaps, I figured he must have ..practiced this joke many times: "I tell my daughter, Hey, why be poor? Marry rich!" He laughed loudly and then nudged Lisa, who was sittio him, "Hey, dont you get it? Look what happen. She gonna marry this guy here. Rich. Cause I tell her to, marry Rich."
"When are you guys getting married?" asked Vi.
"I should ask you the same thing," said Waverly. Lisa looked embarrassed when Vi ighe question.
"Mom, I dont like crab!" whined Shoshana.
"Nice haircut," Waverly said to me from across the table.
"Thanks, David always does a great job."
"You mean you still go to that guy on Howard Street?" Waverly asked, arg one eyebrow. "Arent you afraid?"
I could sehe danger, but I said it anyway: "What do you mean, afraid? Hes always very good."
"I mean, he is gay," Waverly said. "He could have AIDS. And he is cutting your hair, which is like cutting a living tissue. Maybe Im being paranoid, being a mother, but you just t be too safe these days…."
And I sat there feeling as if my hair were coated with disease.
"You should go see my guy," said Waverly. "Mr. Rory. He does fabulous work, although he probably charges more than youre used to."
I felt like screaming. She could be so sneaky with her insults. Every time I asked her the simplest of tax questions, for example, she could turn the versation around and make it seem as if I were too cheap to pay for her legal advice.
Shed say things like, "I really dont like to talk about important tax matters except in my office. I mean, what if you say something casual over lund I give you some casual advice. And then you follow it, and its wrong because you didnt give me the full information. Id feel terrible. And you would too, wouldnt you?"
At that crab dinner, I was so mad about what she said about my hair that I wao embarrass her, to reveal in front of everybody how petty she was. So I decided to front her about the free-lance work Id done for her firm, eight pages of brochure copy on its tax services. The firm was now more than thirty days late in paying my invoice.
"Maybe I could afford Mr. Rorys prices if someones firm paid me on time," I said with a teasing grin. And I leased to see Waverlys rea. She was genuinely flustered, speechless.
I could rubbing it in: "I think its pretty ironic that a big ating firm t even pay its own bills on time. I mean, really, Waverly, what kind of place are you w for?"
Her face was dark and quiet.
"Hey, hey, you girls, no more fighting!" said my father, as if Waverly and I were still children arguing over tricycles and crayon colors.
"Thats right, we dont want to talk about this now," said Waverly quietly.
"So how do you think the Giants are going to do?" said Vi, trying to be funny. Nobody laughed.
I wasnt about to let her slip away this time. "Well, every time I call you on the phone, you t talk about it theher," I said.
Waverly looked at Rich, whed his shoulders. She turned bae and sighed.
"Listen, June, I dont know how to tell you this. That stuff you wrote, well, the firm decided it was uable."
"Youre lying. You said it was great."
Waverly sighed again. "I know I did. I didnt want to hurt your feelings. I was trying to see if we could fix it somehow. But it wont work."
And just like that, I was starting to flail, tossed without warning into deep water, drowning and desperate. "Most copy needs fiuning," I said. "Its…normal not to be perfect the first time. I should have explaihe process better."
"June, I really dont think…"
"Rewrites are free. Im just as ed about making it perfect as you are."
Waverly acted as if she didnt even hear me. "Im trying to vihem to at least pay you for some of your time. I know you put a lot of work into it…I owe you at least that for even suggesting you do it."
"Just tell me what they want ged. Ill call you week so we go over it, line by line."
"June—I t," Waverly said with cool finality. "Its just not…sophisticated. Im sure what you write for your other ts is wonderful. But were a big firm. We need somebody who uands that…our style." She said this toug her hand to her chest, as if she were referring to her style.
Then she laughed in a lighthearted way. "I mean, really, June." And thearted speaking in a deep television-announcer voice: "Three bes, three needs, three reasons to buy…Satisfa guaranteed…for todays and tomorrows tax needs…"
She said this in such a funny way that everybody thought it was a good joke and laughed. And then, to make matters worse, I heard my mother saying to Waverly: "True, ot teach style. Ju sophisticate like you. Must be born this way."
I was surprised at myself, how humiliated I felt. I had been outsmarted by Waverly once again, and now betrayed by my own mother. I was smiling so hard my lower lip was twitg from the strain. I tried to find something else to trate on, and I remember pig up my plate, and then Mr. gs, as if I were clearing the table, and seeing so sharply through my tears the chips on the edges of these old plates, w why my mother didnt use the new set I had bought her five years ago.
The table was littered with crab carcasses. Waverly and Rich lit cigarettes and put a crab shell between them for an ashtray. Shoshana had wandered over to the piano and was banging notes out with a crab claw in each hand. Mr. g, who had grown totally deaf over the years, watched Shoshana and applauded: "Bravo! Bravo!" And except for his strange shouts, nobody said a word. My mother went to the kit aurned with a plate es sliced into wedges. My father poked at the remnants of his crab. Vi cleared his throat, twice, and then patted Lisas hand.
It was Auntie Lindo who finally spoke: "Waverly, you let her try again. You make her do too fast first time. Of course she ot get it right."
I could hear my mother eating an e slice. She was the only person I knew who ched es, making it sound as if she were eating crisp apples instead. The sound of it was worse than gnashih.
"Good o９９lｉb.ake time," tinued Auntie Lindo, nodding her head in agreement with herself.
"Put in lotta a," advised Uin. "Lotta a, boy, thats what I like. Hey, thats all you need, make it right."
"Probably not," I said, and smiled before carrying the plates to the sink.
That was the night, i, that I realized I was er than who I was. I ywriter. I worked for a small ad agency. I promised every new t, "rovide the sizzle for the meat." The sizzle always boiled down to "Three Bes, Three Needs, Three Reasons to Buy." The meat was always coaxial cable, T-1 multiplexers, protocol verters, and the like. I was very good at what I did, succeeding at something small like that.
I turned oer to wash the dishes. And I no longer felt angry at Waverly. I felt tired and foolish, as if I had been running to escape someone chasing me, only to look behind and discover there was no ohere.
I picked up my mothers plate, the one she had carried into the kit at the start of the dihe crab was untouched. I lifted the shell and smelled the crab. Maybe it was because I didnt like crab in the first place. I couldnt tell what was wrong with it.
After everybody left, my mother joined me i. I utting dishes away. She put water on for more tea and sat down at the small kit table. I waited for her to chastise me.
"Good dinner, Ma," I said politely.
"Not so good," she said, jabbing at her mouth with a toothpick.
"What happeo your crab? Whyd you throw it away?"
"Not so good," she said again. "That crab die. Even a beggar dont want it."
"How could you tell? I didnt smell anything wrong."
" tell even before cook!" She was standing now, looking out the kit window into the night. "I shake that crab before cook. His legs—droopy. His mouth—wide open, already like a dead person."
"Whyd you cook it if you k was already dead?"
"I thought…maybe only just die. Maybe taste not too bad. But I smell, dead taste, not firm."
"What if someone else had picked that crab?"
My mother looked at me and smiled. "Only you pick that crab. Nobody else take it. I already know this. Everybody else wa quality. You thinking different."
She said it in a way as if this were proof—proof of something good. She always said things that didnt make any sehat sounded both good and bad at the same time.
I utting away the last of the chipped plates and then I remembered something else. "Ma, why dont you ever use those new dishes I bought you? If you didnt like them, you should have told me. I could have ged the pattern."
"Of course, I like," she said, irritated. "Sometime I think something is so good, I want to save it. Then I fet I save it."
And then, as if she had just now remembered, she unhooked the clasp of her gold necklad took it off, wadding the and the jade pendant in her palm. She grabbed my hand and put the neckla my palm, then shut my fingers around it.
"No, Ma," I protested. "I t take this."
"Nala, nala"—Take it, take it—she said, as if she were scolding me. And then she tinued in ese. "For a long time, I wao give you this necklace. See, I wore this on my skin, so when you put it on your skin, then you know my meaning. This is your lifes importance."
I looked at the necklace, the pendant with the light green jade. I wao give it back. I didnt want to accept it. A I also felt as if I had already swallowed it.
"Yiving this to me only because of what happeonight," I finally said.
"What happen?"
"What Waverly said. What everybody said."
"Tss! Why you listen to her? Why you want to follow behind her, chasing her words? She is like this crab." My mother poked a shell in the garbage . "Always walking sideways, moving crooked. You make ys go the other way."
I put the neckla. It felt cool.
"Not so good, this jade," she said matter-of-factly, toug the pendant, and then she added in ese: "This is young jade. It is a very light color now, but if you wear it every day it will bereen."
My father hasen well since my mother died. So I am here, i, to cook him dinner. Im slig tofu. Ive decided to make him a spicy bean-curd dish. My mother used to tell me how hot things restore the spirit ah. But Im making this mostly because I know my father loves this dish and I know how to cook it. I like the smell of it: ginger, scallions, and a red chili sauce that tickles my he minute I open the jar.
Above me, I hear the old pipes shake into a with a thunk! and theer running in my sink dwio a trickle. One of the tenants upstairs must be taking a shower. I remember my mother plaining: "Even you dont want them, you stuck." And now I know what she meant.
As I rihe tofu in the sink, I am startled by a dark mass that appears suddenly at the window. Its the one-eared tomcat from upstairs. Hes balang on the sill, rubbing his flank against the window.
My mother didnt kill that damn cat after all, and Im relieved. And then I see this cat rubbing more vigorously on the window aarts to raise his tail.
"Get away from there!" I shout, and slap my hand on the window three times. But the cat just narrows his eyes, flattens his one ear, and hisses back at me.
Ameri Translation Up
Queen Mother of the Western Skies
"O! Hwai dungsyi"—You bad little thing—said the woman, teasing her baby granddaughter. "Is Buddha teag you to laugh for no reason?" As the baby tile, the woma a deep wish stirring in her heart.
"Even if I could live forever," she said to the baby, "I still dont know which way I would teach you. I was once so free and i. I too laughed for no reason.
"But later I threw away my foolish innoce to protect myself. And then I taught my daughter, your mother, to shed her innoce so she would not be hurt as well.
"Hwai dungsyi, was this kind of thinking wrong? If I nnize evil in other people, is it not because I have bee evil too? If I see someone has a suspicious nose, have I not smelled the same bad things?"
The baby laughed, listening trandmothers laments.
"O! O! You say you are laughing because you have already lived forever, over and ain? You say you are Syi Wang Mu, Queen Mother of the Western Skies, now e back to give me the answer! Good, good, I am listening….
"Thank you, Little Queen. Then you must teach my daughter this same lesson. How to lose your innoce but not your hope. How to laugh forever."
Magpies
An-Mei Hsu
Yesterday my daughter said to me, "My marriage is falling apart."
And now all she do is watch it falling. She lies down on a psychiatrist couch, squeezing tears out about this shame. And, I think, she will lie there until there is nothing more to fall, nothio cry about, everything dry.
She cried, "No choio choice!" She doesnt know. If she doesnt speak, she is making a choice. If she doesnt try, she lose her ce forever.
I know this, because I was raised the ese way: I was taught to desire nothing, to swallow other peoples misery, to eat my own bitterness.
And even though I taught my daughter the opposite, still she came out the same way! Maybe it is because she was born to me and she was born a girl. And I was born to my mother and I was born a girl. All of us are like stairs, oep after anoing up and down, but all going the same way.
I know how it is to be quiet, to listen and watch, as if your life were a dream. You close your eyes when you no longer want to watch. But when you no longer want to listen, what you do? I still hear what happened more than sixty years ago.
My mother was a strao me when she first arrived at my uncles house in Ningpo. I was nine years old and had not seen her for many years. But I knew she was my mother, because I could feel her pain.
"Do not look at that woman," warned my aunt. "She has thrown her fato the eastward-flowing stream. Her aral spirit is lost forever. The person you see is just decayed flesh, evil, rotted to the bone."
And I would stare at my mother. She did not look evil. I wao touch her face, the ohat looked like mine.
It is true, she wore strange fn clothes. But she did not speak back when my aunt cursed her. Her head bowed even lower when my uncle slapped her for calling him Brother. She cried from her heart when Popo died, even though Popo, her mother, had sent her away so many years before. And after Popos funeral, she obeyed my uncle. She prepared herself to return to Tientsin, where she had dishonored her widowhood by being the third e to a rich man.
How could she leave without me? This was a question I could not ask. I was a child. I could only watd listen.
The night before she was to leave, she held my head against her body, as if to protect me from a danger I could not see. I was g t her back before she was even gone. And as I lay in her lap, she told me a story.
"An-mei," she whispered, "have you seetle turtle that lives in the pond?" I his ond in our courtyard and I often poked a sti the still water to make the turtle swim out from underh the rocks.
"I also khat turtle when I was a small child," said my mother. "I used to sit by the pond and watch him swimming to the surface, biting the air with his little beak. He is a very old turtle."
I could see that turtle in my mind and I knew my mother was seeing the same one.
"This turtle feeds on our thoughts," said my mother. "I learhis one day, when I was ye, and Popo said I could no longer be a child. She said I could not shout, or run, or sit on the ground to catch crickets. I could not cry if I was disappointed. I had to be silent and listen to my elders. And if I did not do this, Popo said she would y hair and seo a place where Buddhist nuns lived.
"That night, after Popo told me this, I sat by the pond, looking into the water. And because I was weak, I began to cry. Then I saw this turtle swimming to the top and his beak was eating my tears as soon as they touched the water. He ate them quickly, five, six, seven tears, then climbed out of the pond, crawled onto a smooth rod began to speak.
"The turtle said, I have eaten your tears, and this is why I know your misery. But I must warn you. If you cry, your life will always be sad.
"Theurtle opened his beak and out poured five, six, seven pearly eggs. The eggs broke open and from them emerged seven birds, who immediately began to chatter and sing. I knew from their snow-white bellies and pretty voices that they were magpies, birds of joy. These birds bent their beaks to the pond and began to drink greedily. And when I reached out my hand to capture ohey all rose up, beat their black wings in my face, and flew up into the air, laughing.
"Now you see, said the turtle, drifting bato the pond, why it is useless to cry. Your tears do not wash away your sorrows. They feed someone elses joy. And that is why you must learn to swallow your own tears. "
But after my mother finished her story, I looked at her and saw she was g. And I also began tain, that this was our fate, to live like two turtles seeing the watery world together from the bottom of the little pond.
In the m, I awoke to hear—not the bird of joy—but angry sounds in the distance. I jumped out of my bed and ran quietly to my window.
Out in the front courtyard, I saw my mother kneeling, scratg the stohway with her fingers, as if she had lost something and knew she could not find it again. In front of her stood Uncle, my mothers brother, and he was shouting.
"You want to take your daughter and ruin her life as well!" Uamped his foot at this impertihought. "You should already be gone."
My mother did not say anything. She remained bent on the ground, her back as rounded as the turtle in the pond. She was g with her mouth closed. And I began to cry in the same way, swallowing those bitter tears.
I hurried to get dressed. And by the time I ran dowairs and into the front room, my mother was about to leave. A servant was takirunk outside. My auntie was holding onto my little brothers hand. Before I could remember to y mouth, I shouted, "Ma!"
"See how your evil influence has already spread to your daughter!" exclaimed my uncle.
And my mother, her head still bowed, looked up at me and saw my face. I could not stop my tears from running down. And I think, seeing my face like this, my mother ged. She stood up tall, with her back straight, so that now she was almost taller than my uncle. She held her hand out to me and I ran to her. She said in a quiet, calm voice: "An-mei, I am not asking you. But I am going back to Tientsin now and you follow me."
My auntie heard this and immediately hissed. "A girl is er than what she follows! An-mei, you think you see something new, riding on top of a new cart. But in front of you, it is just the ass of the same old mule. Your life is what you see in front of you."
And hearing this made me more determio leave. Because the life in front of me was my uncles house. And it was full of dark riddles and suffering that I could not uand. So I turned my head away from my aurange words and looked at my mother.
Now my uncle picked up a porcelain vase. "Is this what you want to do?" said my uncle. "Throw your life away? If you follow this woman, you ever lift your head again." He threw that vase on the ground, where it smashed into many pieces. I jumped, and my mother took my hand.
Her hand was warm. "e, An-mei. We must hurry," she said, as if a rainy sky.
"An-mei!" I heard my aunt call piteously from behind, but then my uncle said, "Swanle!"—Finished!—"She is already ged."
As I walked away from my old life, I wondered if it were true, what my uncle had said, that I was ged and could never lift my head again. So I tried. I lifted it.
And I saw my little brother, g so hard as my auntie held onto his hand. My mother did not dare take my brother. A son ever go to somebody elses house to live. If he went, he would lose any hope for a future. But I knew he was not thinking this. He was g, angry and scared, because my mother had not asked him to follow.
What my uncle had said was true. After I saw my brother this way, I could not keep my head lifted.
In the rickshaw on our way to the railway station, my mother murmured, "Poor An-mei, only you know. Only you know what I have suffered." When she said this, I felt proud, that only I could see these delicate and rare thoughts.
But orain, I realized how far behind I was leaving my life. And I became scared. We traveled for seven days, one day by rail, six days by steamer boat. At first, my mother was very lively. She told me stories of Tientsin whenever my face looked back at where we had just been.
She talked of clever peddlers who served every kind of simple food: steamed dumplings, boiled peanuts, and my mothers favorite, a thin pah an egg dropped in the middle, brushed with black bean paste, then rolled up—still finger-hot off the griddle!—and hao the hungry buyer.
She described the port and its seafood and claimed it was eveer than what we ate in Ningpo. Big clams, prawns, crab, all kinds of fish, salty and freshwater, the best—otherwise why would so many fners e to this port?
She told me about narrow streets with crowded bazaars. In the early m peasants sold vegetables I had never seen or eaten before in my life—and my mother assured me I would find them so sweet, so tender, so fresh. And there were ses of the city where different fners lived—Japanese, White Russians, Ameris, and Germans—but ogether, all with their own separate habits, some dirty, some . And they had houses of all shapes and colors, one painted in pink, another with rooms that jutted out at every angle like the backs and fronts of Victorian dresses, others with roofs like pointed hats and wood carvings painted white to look like ivory.
And in the wiime I would see snow, she said. My mother said, In just a few months, the period of the Cold Dew would e, then it would start to rain, and then the rain would fall more softly, more slowly until it became white and dry as the petals of quince blossoms in the spring. She would me up in fur-lined coats and pants, so if it was bitter cold, no matter!
She told me many stories until my face was turned forward, looking toward my new home isin. But when the fifth day came, as we sailed closer toward the Tientsin gulf, the waters ged from muddy yellow to blad the boat began to rod groan. I became fearful and sick. And at night I dreamed of the eastward-flowing stream my aunt had warned me about, the dark waters that ged a person forever. And watg those dark waters from my sickbed on the boat, I was scared that my aunts words had e true. I saw how my mother was already beginning to ge, how dark and angry her face had bee, looking out over the sea, thinking her own thoughts. And my thoughts, too, became cloudy and fused.
On the m of the day we were supposed to arrive isin, she went into our sleeping wearing her white ese m dress. And wheuro the sitting room oop deck, she looked like a stranger. Her eyebrows were paihick at the ter, then long and sharp at the ers. Her eyes had dark smudges around them and her face ale white, her lips dark red. On top of her head, she wore a small brow hat with one large brown-speckled feather swept across the front. Her short hair was tucked into this hat, except for two perfect curls on her forehead that faced each other like black lacquer carvings. She had on a long brown dress with a white lace collar that fell all the way to her waist and was fastened down with a silk rose.
This was a shog sight. We were in m. But I could not say anything. I was a child. How could I sy own mother? I could only feel shame seeing my mother wear her shame so boldly.
In her gloved hands she held a large cream-colored box with fn words written on top: "Fine English-Tailored Apparel, Tientsin." I remember she had put the box dowween us and told me: "Open it! Quickly!" She was breathless and smiling. I was so surprised by my mothers range manner, it was not until many years later, when I was using this box to store letters and photographs, that I wondered how my mother had known. Even though she had not seen me for many years, she had known that I would someday follow her and that I should wear a new dress when I did.
And when I opehat box, all my shame, my fears, they fell away. Inside was a arch-white dress. It had ruffles at the collar and along the sleeves and six tiers of ruffles for a skirt. The box also tained white stogs, white leather shoes, and an enormous white hair bow, already shaped and ready to be fastened on with two loose ties.
Everything was too big. My shoulders kept slipping out of the large neck hole. The waist was big enough to fit two of me. But I did not mind. She did not mind. I raised my arms and stood perfectly still. She drew out pins and thread and with little tucks here and there stuffed in the loose materials, then filled the toes of the shoes with tissue paper, until everything fit. Wearing those clothes, I felt as if I had grown new hands a and I would now have to learn to walk in a new way.
And then my mother became sain. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watg as our boat drew closer and closer to the dock.
"An-mei, now you are ready to start your new life. You will live in a new house. You will have a new father. Many sisters. Another little brother. Dresses and good things to eat. Do you think all this will be enough to be happy?"
I nodded quietly, thinking about the unhappiness of my brother in Ningpo. My mother did not say anything more about the house, or my new family, or my happiness. And I did not ask any questions, because now a bell was sounding and a ships steward was calling our arrival isin. My mave quistrus to our porter, poio our two small trunks and handed him money, as if she had dohis every day of her life. And then she carefully opened another box and pulled out what looked to be five or six dead foxes with open beady eyes, limp paws, and fluffy tails. She put this scary sight around her ned shoulders, then grabbed my hand tight as we moved down the aisle with the crowd of people.
There was no o the harbor to meet us. My mother walked slowly down the rampway, through the baggage platform, looking nervously from side to side.
"An-mei, e! Why are you so slow!" she said, her voice filled with fear. I was dragging my feet, trying to stay in those toe shoes as the grouh me swayed. And when I was not watg which way my feet were moving, I looked up and saw everybody was in a hurry, everybody seemed unhappy: families with old mothers and fathers, all wearing dark, somber colors, pushing and pulling bags and crates of their lifes possessions; pale fn ladies dressed like my mother, walking with fn men in hats; rich wives scolding maids and servants following behind carrying trunks and babies and baskets of food.
We stood he street, where rickshaws and trucks came a. We held hands, thinking our own thoughts, watg people arriving at the station, watg others hurrying away. It was late m, and although it seemed warm outside, the sky was gray and clouding over.
After a long time of standing and seeing no one, my mhed and finally shouted for a rickshaw.
During this ride, my mued with the rickshaw puller, who wanted extra cash to carry the two of us and gage. Then she plained about the dust from the ride, the smell of the street, the bumpiness of the road, the lateness of the day, the ache iomach. And when she had finished with these laments, she turned her plaints to me: a spot on my new dress, a tangle in my hair, my twisted stogs. I tried to win back my mother, pointing to ask her about a small park, a bird flying above us, a loric streetcar that passed us sounding its horn.
But she became only more cross and said: "An-mei, sit still. Do not look so eager. We are only going home."
And when we finally arrived home, we were both exhausted.
I knew from the beginning our new home would not be an ordinary house. My mother had told me we would live in the household of Wu Tsing, who was a very rich mert. She said this man owned many carpet factories and lived in a mansion located in the British cession of Tientsin, the best se of the city where ese people could live. We lived not too far from Paima Di, Racehorse Street, where only Westerners could live. And we were also close to little shops that sold only one kind of thing: only tea, or only fabric, or only soap.
The house, she said, was fn-built; Wu Tsing liked fn things because fners had made him rich. And I cluded that was why my mother had to wear fn-style clothes, in the manner of newly rich ese people who liked to display their wealth oside.
And even though I knew all this before I arrived, I was still amazed at what I saw.
The front of the house had a ese stoe, rou the top, with big black lacquer doors and a threshold you had to step over. Withies I saw the courtyard and I was surprised. There were no willows or sweet-smelling cassia trees, no garden pavilions, no benches sitting by a pond, no tubs of fish. Instead, there were long rows of bushes on both sides of a wide brick walkway and to each side of those bushes was a big lawn area with fountains. And as we walked down the walkway and got closer to the house, I saw this house had been built in the Western style. It was three stories high, of mortar and stone, with loal balies on each floor and eys at every er.
When we arrived, a young servant woman ran out and greeted my mother with cries of joy. She had a high scratchy voice: "Oh Taitai, youve already arrived! How this be?" This was Yan g, my mothers personal maid, and she knew how to fuss over my mother just the right amount. She had called my mother Taitai, the simple honorable title of Wife, as if my mother were the first wife, the only wife.
Yan g called loudly to other servants to take gage, called another servant t tea and draw a hot bath. And then she hastily explaihat Sed Wife had told everyo to expect us for another week at least. "What a shame! No oo greet you! Sed Wife, the oo Peking to visit her relatives. Your daughter, so pretty, your same look. Shes so shy, eh? First Wife, her daughters…gone on a pilgrimage to another Buddhist temple…Last week, a cousins uncle, just a little crazy, came to visit, turned out not to be a cousin, not an uncle, who knows who he was…."
As soon as we walked into that big house, I became lost with too many things to see: a curved staircase that wound up and up, a ceiling with faces in every er, then hallways twisting and turning into one room then ao my right was a large room, larger than I had ever seen, and it was filled with stiff teakwood furniture: sofas and tables and chairs. And at the other end of this long, long room, I could see doors leading into more rooms, more furniture, then more doors. To my left was a darker room, another sitting room, this one filled with fn furniture: dark greeher sofas, paintings with hunting dogs, armchairs, and mahogany desks. And as I glanced in these rooms I would see different people, and Yan g would explain: "This young lady, she is Sed Wifes servant. That one, she is nobody, just the daughter of cooks helper. This man takes care of the garden."
And then we were walking up the staircase. We came to the top of the stairs and I found myself in another large sitting room. We walked to the left, down a hall, past one room, and then stepped into another. "This is your mothers room," Yan g told me proudly. "This is where you will sleep."
And the first thing I saw, the only thing I could see at first, was a magnifit bed. It was heavy and light at the same time: soft rose silk and heavy, dark shiny wood carved all around with dragons. Four posts held up a silk opy and at each post dangled large silk ties holding back curtains. The bed sat on four squat lions paws, as if the weight of it had crushed the lion underh. Yan g showed me how to use a small step stool to climb onto the bed. And when I tumbled onto the silk cs, I laughed to discover a soft mattress that was ten times the thiess of my bed in Ningpo.
Sitting in this bed, I admired everything as if I were a princess. This room had a glass door that led to a baly. In front of the window door was a round table of the same wood as the bed. It too sat on carved lions legs and was surrounded by four chairs. A servant had already put tea and sweet cakes oable and was now lighting the houlu, a small stove for burning coal.
It was not that my uncles house in Ningpo had been poor. He was actually quite well-to-do. But this house isin was amazing. And I thought to myself, My uncle was wrong. There was no shame in my mothers marrying Wu Tsing.
While thinking this, I was startled by a sudden g! g! g! followed by musi the wall opposite the bed was a big wooden clock with a forest and bears carved into it. The door on the clock had burst open and a tiny room full of people was ing out. There was a bearded man in a pointed cap seated at a table. He was bending his head over and ain to drink soup, but his beard would dip in the bowl first and stop him. A girl in a white scarf and blue dress was standio the table and she was bending over and ain to give the man more of this soup. Ao the man and girl was anirl with a skirt and short jacket. She was swinging her arm bad forth, playing violin music. She allayed the same dark song. I still hear it in my head after these many years—ni-ah! nah! nah! nah! nah-ni-nah!
This was a wonderful clock to see, but after I heard it that first hour, then the , and then always, this clock became aravagant nuisance. I could not sleep for many nights. And later, I found I had an ability: to not listen to something meaningless calling to me.
I was so happy those first few nights, in this amusing house, sleeping in the big soft bed with my mother. I would lie in this fortable bed, thinking about my uncles house in Ningpo, realizing how unhappy I had been, feeling sorry for my little brother. But most of my thoughts flew to all the hings to see and do in this house.
I watched hot water p out of pipes not just i but also into washbasins and bathtubs on all three floors of the house. I saw chamber pots that flushed without servants having to empty them. I saw rooms as fancy as my mothers. Yan g explained whies beloo First Wife and the other es, who were called Sed Wife and Third Wife. And some rooms beloo no one. "They are fuests," said Yan g.
Ohird floor were rooms for only the men servants, said Yan g, and one of the rooms even had a door to a et that was really a secret hiding place from sea pirates.
Thinking back, I find it hard to remember everything that was in that house; too many good things all seem the same after a while. I tired of anything that was not a y. "Oh, this," I said when Yan g brought me the same sweet meats as the day before. "Ive tasted this already."
My mother seemed tain her pleasant nature. She put her old clothes ba, long ese gowns and skirts now with white m bands sewn at the bottoms. During the day, she poie and funny things, naming them for me: bidet, Brownie camera, salad fork, napkin. In the evening, when there was nothing to do, we talked about the servants: who was clever, who was diligent, who was loyal. We gossiped as we cooked small eggs and sweet potatoes on top of the houlu just to enjoy their smell. And at night, my mother would again tell me stories as I lay in her arms falling asleep.
If I look upon my whole life, I ot think of aime when I felt more fortable: when I had no worries, fears, or desires, when my life seemed as soft and lovely as lying inside a co of rose silk. But I remember clearly when all that fort became no longer fortable.
It erhaps two weeks after we had arrived. I was in the large garden in back, kig a ball and watg two dogs chase it. My mother sat at a table watg me play. And then I heard a horn off in the distance, shouts, and those two dogs fot the ball and ran off barking in high happy voices.
My mother had the same fearful look she wore in the harbor station. She walked quickly into the house. I walked around the side of the house toward the front. Two shiny black rickshaws had arrived and behind them a large black motorcar. A manservant was taking luggage out of one rickshaw. From another rickshaw, a young maid jumped out.
All the servants crowded around the motorcar, looking at their faces in the polished metal, admiring the curtained windows, the velvet seats. Then the driver opehe back door and out stepped a young girl. She had short hair with rows of waves. She looked to be only a few years older than I, but she had on a womans dress, stogs, and high heels. I looked down at my own white dress covered with grass stains and I felt ashamed.
And then I saw the servants reag into the backseat of the motorcar and a man was slowly being lifted by both arms. This was Wu Tsing. He was a big man, not tall, but puffed out like a bird. He was much older than my mother, with a high shiny forehead and a large black mole on one nostril. He wore a Western suit jacket with a vest that closed too tightly around his stomach, but his pants were very loose. He groaned and grunted as he heaved himself out and into view. And as soon as his shoes touched the ground, he began to walk toward the house, ag as though he saw no one, even though people greeted him and were busy opening doors, carrying his bags, taking his long coat. He walked into the house like that, with this young girl following him. She was looking behind at everyoh a simpering smile, as if they were there to honor her. And when she was hardly in the door, I heard one servant remark to another, "Fifth Wife is so young she did n any of her own servants, only a wet nurse."
I looked up at the house and saw my mother looking down from her window, watg everything. So in this clumsy way, my mother found out that Wu Tsing had taken his fourth e, who was actually just an afterthought, a foolish bit of decoration for his new motorcar.
My mother was not jealous of this young girl who would now be called Fifth Wife. Why should she be? My mother did not love Wu Tsing. A girl in a did not marry for love. She married for position, and my mothers position, I later learned, was the worst.
After Wu Tsing and Fifth Wife arrived home, my mother often stayed in her room w on her embroidery. Iernoon, she and I would go on long silent rides iy, searg for a bolt of silk in a color she could not seem to name. Her unhappiness was this same way. She could not .
And so, while everything seemed peaceful, I k was not. You may wonder how a small child, only nine years old, know these things. Now I wonder about it myself. I remember only how unfortable I felt, how I could feel the truth with my stomach, knowing something terrible was going to happen. And I tell you, it was almost as bad as how I felt some fifteen years later when the Japanese bombs started to fall and, listening in the distance, I could hear soft rumbles and khat what was ing was unstoppable.
A few days after Wu Tsing had arrived home, I awoke in the middle of the night. My mother was rog my shoulder gently.
"An-mei, be a good girl," she said in a tired voice. "Go to Yan gs room now."
I rubbed my eyes and as I awoke I saw a dark shadow and began to cry. It was Wu Tsing.
"Be quiet. Nothing is the matter. Go to Yan g," my mother whispered.
And then she lifted me down slowly to the cold floor. I heard the wooden clock begin to sing and Wu Tsings deep voiplaining of the chill. And when I went to Yan g, it was as though she had expected me and knew I would be g.
The m I could not look at my mother. But I saw that Fifth Wife had a swollen face like mine. And at breakfast that m, in front of everybody, her anger finally erupted when she shouted rudely to a servant for serving her so slowly. Everyone, even my mother, stared at her for her bad manners, critig a servant that way. I saw Wu Tsing throw her a sharp look, like a father, and she began to cry. But later that m, Fifth Wife was smiling again, prang around in a new dress and new shoes.
Iernoon, my mother spoke of her unhappiness for the first time. We were in a rickshaw going to a store to find embroidery thread. "Do you see how shameful my life is?" she cried. "Do you see how I have no position? He brought home a new wife, a low-class girl, dark-skinned, no manners! Bought her for a few dollars from a poor village family that makes mudbrick tiles. And at night when he o longer use her, he es to me, smelling of her mud."
She was g now, rambling like a crazy woman: "You see now, a fourth wife is less than a fifth wife. An-mei, you must not fet. I was a first wife, yi tai, the wife of a scholar. Your mother was not always Fourth Wife, Sz Tai!"
She said this word, sz, so hatefully I shuddered. It sounded like the sz that means "die." And I remembered Popo oelling me four is a very unluumber because if you say it in an angry way, it always es out wrong.
The Col..d Dew came. It became chilly, and Sed Wife and Third Wife, their children and servants returned home to Tientsin. There was a big otiohey arrived. Wu Tsing had allowed the new motorcar to be sent to the railway station, but of course that was not enough to carry them all back. So behind the motorcar came a dozen or so rickshaws, boung up and down like crickets following a large shile. Women began to pour out of the motorcar.
My mother was standing behind me, ready to greet everybody. A woman wearing a plain fn dress and large, ugly shoes walked toward us. Three girls, one of whom was my age, followed behind.
"This is Third Wife ahree daughters," said my mother.
Those three girls were even more shy than I. They crowded around their mother with bowed heads and did not speak. But I tio stare. They were as plain as their mother, with big teeth, thick lips, and eyebrows as bushy as a caterpillar. Third Wife weled me warmly and allowed me to carry one of her packages.
I felt my mothers hand stiffen on my shoulder. "And there is Sed Wife. She will want you to call her Big Mother," she whispered.
I saw a woman wearing a long black fur coat and dark Western clothes, very fancy. And in her arms she held a little boy with fat rosy cheeks who looked to be two years old.
"He is Syaudi, your littlest brother," my mother whispered. He wore a cap made out of the same dark fur and was winding his little finger around Sed Wifes long pearl necklace. I wondered how she could have a baby this young. Sed Wife was handsome enough and seemed healthy, but she was quite old, perhaps forty-five. She hahe baby to a servant and then began to give instrus to the many people who still crowded around her.
And then Sed Wife walked toward me, smiling, her fur coat gleaming with every step. She stared, as if she were examining me, as if she reized me. Finally she smiled and patted my head. And then with a swift, graceful movement of her small hands, she removed her long pearly strand and put it around my neck.
This was the most beautiful piece of jewelry I had ever touched. It was designed in the Western style, a long strand, each bead the same size and of aical pinkish tone, with a heavy brooch of ornate silver to clasp the ends together.
My mother immediately protested: "This is too much for a small child. She will break it. She will lose it."
But Sed Wife simply said to me: "Such a pretty girl needs something to put the light on her face."
I could see by the way my mother shrank bad became quiet that she was angry. She did not like Sed Wife. I had to be careful how I showed my feelings: not to let my mother think Sed Wife had won me over. Yet I had this reckless feeling. I was overjoyed that Sed Wife had showhis special favor.
"Thank you, Big Mother," I said to Sed Wife. And I was looking down to avoid showing her my face, but still I could not help smiling.
When my mother and I had tea in her room later that afternoon, I knew she was angry.
"Be careful, An-mei," she said. "What you hear is not genuine. She makes clouds with one hand, rain with the other. She is trying to trick you, so you will do anything for her."
I sat quietly, trying not to listen to my mother. I was thinking how much my mother plaihat perhaps all of her unhappiness sprang from her plaints. I was thinking how I should not listen to her.
"Give the necklae," she said suddenly.
I looked at her without moving.
"You do not believe me, so you must give me the necklace. I will not let her buy you for such a cheap price."
And when I still did not move, she stood up and walked over, and lifted that necklace off. And before I could cry to stop her, she put the necklader her shoe and stepped on it. Whe it oable, I saw what she had dohis necklace that had almost bought my heart and mind now had one bead of crushed glass.
Later she removed that broken bead and khe space together so the necklace looked whole again. She told me to wear the necklace every day for one week so I would remember how easy it is to lose myself to something false. And after I wore those fake pearls long enough to learn this lesson, she let me take them off. Then she opened a box, and turo me: "Now ynize what is true?" And I nodded.
She put something in my hand. It was a heavy ring of watery blue sapphire, with a star in its ter so pure that I never ceased to look at that ring with wonder.
Before the sed onth began, First Wife returned from Peking, where she kept a house and lived with her two unmarried daughters. I remember thinking that First Wife would make Sed Wife bow to her ways. First Wife was the head wife, by law and by .
But First Wife turned out to be a living ghost, no threat to Sed Wife, who had her strong spirit intact. First Wife looked quite a and frail with her rounded body, bou, her old-style padded jacket and pants, and plain, lined face. But now that I remember her, she must not have been too old, maybe Wu Tsings age, so she erhaps fifty.
When I met First Wife, I thought she was blind. She acted as if she did not see me. She did not see Wu Tsing. She did not see my mother. A she could see her two daughters, two spinsters beyond the marriageable age; they were at least twenty-five. And she always regained her sight in time to scold the two dogs for sniffing in her room, digging in the garden outside her window, or wetting on a table leg.
"Why does First Wife sometimes see and sometimes not see?" I asked Yan g one night as she helped me bathe.
"First Wife says she sees only what is Buddha perfe," said Yan g. "She says she is blind to most faults."
Yan g said that First Wife chose to be blind to the unhappiness of her marriage. She and Wu Tsing had been joined in tyandi, heaven ah, so theirs iritual marriage arranged by a matchmaker, ordered by his parents, and protected by the spirits of their aors. But after the first year of marriage, First Wife had given birth to a girl with ooo short. And this misfortune led First Wife to begin a trek to Buddhist temples, to offer alms and tailored silk gowns in honor of Buddhas image, to burn inse and pray to Buddha to lengthen her daughters leg. As it happened, Buddha chose io bless First Wife with another daughter, this oh two perfect legs, but—alas!—with a browain splashed over half her face. With this seisfortune, First Wife began to go on so many pilgrimages to Tsinan, just a half-days train ride to the south, that Wu Tsing bought her a house he Thousand Buddha Cliff and Bubbling Springs Bamboo Grove. And every year he increased the allowance she o manage her own household there. So twice a year, during the coldest and hottest months of the year, she returo Tientsin to pay her respects and suffer sight unseen in her husbands household. And each time she returned, she remained in her bedroom, sitting all day like a Buddha, smoking her opium, talking softly to herself. She did not e downstairs for meals. Instead she fasted or ate vegetarian meals in her room. And Wu Tsing would make a mid-m visit in her bedroom once a week, drinking tea for half an hour, inquiring about her health. He did not bother her at night.
This ghost of a woman should have caused no suffering to my mother, but in fact she put ideas into her head. My mother believed she too had suffered enough to deserve her own household, perhaps not in Tsinan, but oo the east, in little Petaiho, which was a beautiful seaside resort filled with terraces and gardens ahy widows.
"We are going to live in a house of our own," she told me happily the day snow fell on the ground all around our house. She was wearing a new silk fur-lined gown the bright turquoise color of kingfisher feathers. "The house will not be as big as this o will be very small. But we live by ourselves, with Yan g and a few other servants. Wu Tsing has promised this already."
During the coldest winter month, we were all bored, adults and children alike. We did not dare go outside. Yan g warned me that my skin would freeze and crato a thousand pieces. And the other servants always gossiped about everyday sights they had seen in town: the back stoops of stores always blocked with the frozen bodies of beggars. Man or woman, you couldnt tell, they were so dusty with a thick cover of snow.
So every day we stayed in the house, thinking of ways to amuse ourselves. My mother looked at fn magazines and clipped out pictures of dresses she liked, and then she went downstairs to discuss with the tailor how such a dress could be made using the materials available.
I did not like to play with Third Wifes daughters, who were as docile and dull as their mother. Those girls were tent looking out the window all day, watg the sun e up and go down. So instead, Yan g and I roasted chestnuts on top of the little coal stove. And burning our fingers while eating these sweet s, we naturally started to giggle and gossip. Then I heard the clock g and the same song began to play. Yan g preteo sing badly in the classic opera style ah laughed out loud, remembering how Sed Wife had suerday evening, apanying her quavering voi a three-stringed lute and making many mistakes. She had caused everyoo suffer through this eveniertai, until Wu Tsing declared it was enough suffering by falling asleep in his chair. And laughing about this, Yan g told me a story about Sed Wife.
"Twenty years ago, she had been a famous Shantung sing-song girl, a woman of some respect, especially among married men who frequeeahouses. While she had never beey, she was clever, an entress. She could play seve99ｌｉb.ral musical instruments, sing aales with heartbreaking clarity, and touch her fio her cheek and cross her ti in just the right manner.
"Wu Tsing had asked her to be his e, not for love, but because of the prestige of owning what so many other men wanted. And this sing-song girl, after she had seen his enormous wealth and his feebleminded first wife, seo bee his e.
"From the start, Sed Wife knew how to trol Wu Tsings money. She knew by the way his face paled at the sound of the wind that he was fearful of ghosts. And everybody knows that suicide is the only way a woman escape a marriage and gain reveo e back as a ghost and scatter tea leaves and good fortune. So when he refused her a bigger allowance, she did pretend-suicide. She ate a piece of raw opium, enough to make her sick, and the her maid to tell Wu Tsing she was dying. Three days later, Sed Wife had an allowance even bigger than what she had asked.
"She did so many pretend-suicides, we servants began to suspect she no longer bothered to eat the opium. Her ag otent enough. Soon she had a better room in the house, her own private rickshaw, a house for her elderly parents, a sum for buying blessings at temples.
"But ohing she could not have: children. And she knew Wu Tsing would soon bee anxious to have a son who could perform the aral rites and therefuarantee his own spiritual eternity. So before Wu Tsing could plain about Sed Wifes lack of sons, she said: I have already found her, a e suitable to bear your sons. By her very nature, you see she is a virgin. And this was quite true. As you see, Third Wife is quite ugly. She does not even have small feet.
"Third Wife was of course ied to Sed Wife fing this, so there was nument over ma of the household. And even though Sed Wife did not o lift a finger, she oversaw the purchase of food and supplies, she approved the hiring of servants, she invited relatives oival days. She fou nurses for each of the three daughters Third Wife bore for Wu Tsing. And later, when Wu Tsing was again impatient for a son and began to spend too much money in teahouses in other cities, Sed Wife arra so that your mother became Wu Tsings third e and fourth wife!"
Yan g revealed this story in such a natural and lively way that I applauded her clever ending. We tio crack chestnuts open, until I could no longer remain quiet.
"What did Sed Wife do so my mother would marry Wu Tsing?" I asked timidly.
"A little child ot uand such things!" she scolded.
I immediately looked down and remained silent, until Yan g became restless again to hear her own voice speak on this quiet afternoon.
"Your mother," said Yan g, as if talking to herself, "is too good for this family."
"Five years ago—your father had died only one year before—she and I went to Hangchow to visit the Six Harmonies Pagoda on the far side of West Lake. Your father had been a respected scholar and also devoted to the six virtues of Buddhism enshrined in this pagoda. So your mother kowtowed in the pagoda, pledging to observe the right harmony of body, thoughts, and speech, to refrain from giving opinions, and to shuh. And when we boarded the boat to cross the lake agai opposite a man and a woman. This was Wu Tsing and Sed Wife.
"Wu Tsing must have seen her beauty immediately. Back then your mother had hair down to her waist, which she tied high up on her head. And she had unusual skin, a lustrous pink color. Even in her white widows clothes she was beautiful! But because she was a widow, she was worthless in many respects. She could not remarry.
"But this did not stop Sed Wife from thinking of a way. She was tired of watg her households money being washed away in so many different teahouses. The money he spent was enough to support five more wives! She was anxious to quiet Wu Tsings outside appetite. So she spired with Wu Tsing to lure your mother to his bed.
"She chatted with your mother, discovered that she plao go to the Monastery of the Spirits Retreat the day. And Sed Wife showed up at that place as well. And after more friendly talk, she invited your mother to dinner. Your mother was so lonely food versation she gladly accepted. And after the dinner, Sed Wife said to your mother, Do you play mah jong? Oh, it doesnt matter if you play badly. We are only three people nbbr>..ow and ot play at all unless you would be kind enough to join us tomorrow night.
"The night, after a long evening of mah jong, Sed Wife yawned and insisted my mother spend the night. Stay! Stay! Dont be so polite. No, your politeness is really more inve. Why wake the rickshaw boy? said Sed Wife. Look here, my bed is certainly big enough for two.
"As your mother slept soundly in Sed Wifes bed, Sed Wife got up in the middle of the night ahe dark room, and Wu Tsing took her place. When your mother awoke to find him toug her beh her undergarments, she jumped out of bed. He grabbed her by her hair and threw her on the floor, then put his foot ohroat and told her to undress. Your mother did not scream or cry when he fell on her.
"In the early m, she left in a rickshaw, her hair undone and with tears streaming down her face. She told no o me what had happened. But Sed Wife plaio many people about the shameless ho had ented Wu Tsing into bed. How could a worthless widow accuse a rian of lying?
"So when Wu Tsing asked your mother to be his third e, to bear him a son, what choice did she have? She was already as low as a prostitute. And wheuro her brothers house and kowtowed three times to say good-bye, her brother kicked her, and her own mother banned her from the family house forever. That is why you did not see your main until yrandmother died. Your mother went to live isin, to hide her shame with Wu Tsings wealth. And three years later, she gave birth to a son, which Sed Wife claimed as her own.
"And that is how I came to live in Wu Tsings house," cluded Yan g proudly.
And that was how I learhat the baby Syaudi was really my mothers son, my littlest brother.
In truth, this was a bad thing that Yan g had doelling me my mothers story. Secrets are kept from children, a lid on top of the soup kettle, so they do not boil over with too much truth.
After Yan g told me this story, I saw everything. I heard things I had never uood before.
I saw Sed Wifes true nature.
I saw how she often gave Fifth Wife moo go visit her poor village, encing this silly girl to "show your friends and family how rich youve bee!" And of course, her visits always reminded Wu Tsing of Fifth Wifes low-class background and how foolish he had been to be lured by her earthy flesh.
I saw Sed Wife koutou to First Wife, bowing with deep respect while her more opium. And I knew why First Wifes power had been drained away.
I saw how fearful Third Wife became when Sed Wife told her stories of old es who were kicked out into the streets. And I knew why Third Wife watched over Sed Wifes health and happiness.
And I saw my mothers terrible pain as Sed Wife bounced Syaudi on her lap, kissing my mothers son and telling this baby, "As long as I am your mother, you will never be poor. You will never be unhappy. You will grow up to own this household and care for me in my old age."
And I knew why my mother cried in her room so often. Wu Tsings promise of a house—for being the mother of his only son—had disappeared the day Sed Wife collapsed from another bout of pretend-suicide. And my mother knew she could do nothing t the promise back.
I suffered so much after Yan g told me my mothers story. I wanted my mother to shout at Wu Tsing, to shout at Sed Wife, to shout at Yan g and say she was wrong to tell me these stories. But my mother did not even have the right to do this. She had no choice.
Two days before the lunar new year, Yan g woke me when it was still black outside.
"Quickly!" she cried, pulling me along before my mind and eyes could work together.
My mothers room was brightly lit. As soon as I walked in I could see her. I ran to her bed and stood on the footstool. Her arms and legs were moving bad forth as she lay on her back. She was like a soldier, marg to nowhere, her head looking right the. And now her whole body became straight and stiff as if to stretch herself out of her body. Her jaulled down and I saw her tongue was swollen and she was coughing to try to make it fall out.
"Wake up!" I whispered, and then I turned and saw everybody standing there: Wu Tsing, Yan g, Sed Wife, Third Wife, Fifth Wife, the doctor.
"She has taken too mu," cried Yan g. "The doctor says he do nothing. She has poisoned herself."
So they were doing nothing, only waiting. I also waited those many hours.
The only sounds were that of the girl in the clock playing the violin. And I wao shout to the clod make its meaningless noise be silent, but I did not.
I watched my mother mar her bed. I wao say the words that would quiet her body and spirit. But I stood there like the others, waiting and saying nothing.
And then I recalled her story about the little turtle, his warning not to cry. And I wao shout to her that it was no use. There were already too many tears. And I tried to swallow them one by one, but they came too fast, until finally my closed lips burst open and I cried and cried, then cried all aiing everybody in the room feed on my tears.
I fainted with all this grief and they carried me back to Yan gs bed. So that m, while my mother was dying, I was dreaming.
I was falling from the sky down to the ground, into a pond. And I became a little turtle lying at the bottom of this watery place. Above me I could see the beaks of a thousand magpies drinking from the pond, drinking and singing happily and filling their snow-white bellies. I was g hard, so many tears, but they drank and drank, so many of them, until I had no more tears left and the pond was empty, everything as dry as sand.
Yan g later told me my mother had listeo Sed Wife and tried to do pretend-suicide. False words! Lies! She would never listen to this woman who caused her so much suffering.
I know my mother listeo her ow, to no longer pretend. I know this because why else did she die two days before the lunar new year? Why else did she plan her death so carefully that it became a on?
Three days before the lunar new year, she had eaten ywansyau, the sticky sweet dumpling that everybody eats to celebrate. She ate oer the other. And I remember her strange remark. "You see how this life is. You ot eat enough of this bitterness." And what she had done was eat ywansyau filled with a kind of bitter poison, not died seeds or the dull happiness of opium as Yan g and the others had thought. When the poison broke into her body, she whispered to me that she would rather kill her own irit so she could give me a stronger one.
The stiess g to her body. They could not remove the poison and so she died, two days before the new year. They laid her on a wooden board in the hallway. She wore funeral clothes far richer than those she had worn in life. Silk undergarments to keep her warm without the heavy burden of a fur coat. A silk gown, sewn with gold thread. A headdress of gold and lapis and jade. And two delicate slippers with the softest leather soles and two giant pearls on each toe, to light her way to nirvana.
Seeihis last time, I threw myself on her body. And she opened her eyes slowly. I was not scared. I knew she could see me and what she had finally done. So I shut her eyes with my fingers and told her with my heart: I see the truth, too. I am strong, too.
Because we both khis: that ohird day after someone dies, the soul es back to settle scores. In my mothers case, this would be the first day of the lunar new year. And because it is the new year, all debts must be paid, or disaster and misfortune will follow.
So on that day, Wu Tsing, fearful of my mothers vengeful spirit, wore the coarsest of white clothes. He promised her visiting ghost that he would raise Syaudi and me as his honored children. He promised to revere her as if she had been First Wife, his only wife.
And on that day, I showed Sed Wife the fake pearl necklace she had given me and crushed it under my foot.
And on that day, Sed Wifes hair began to turn white.
And on that day, I learo shout.
I know how it is to live your life like a dream. To listen and watch, to wake up and try to uand what has already happened.
You do not need a psychiatrist to do this. A psychiatrist does not want you to wake up. He tells you to dream some more, to find the pond and pour more tears into it. And really, he is just another bird drinking from your misery.
My mother, she suffered. She lost her fad tried to hide it. She found only greater misery and finally could not hide that. There is nothing more to uand. That was a. That was eople did back then. They had no choice. They could not speak up. They could not run away. That was their fate.
But now they do something else. Now they no longer have to swallow their own tears or suffer the taunts of magpies. I know this because I read this news in a magazine from a.
It said that for thousands of years birds had been tormenting the peasants. They flocked to watch peasants bent over in the fields, digging the hard dirt, g into the furrows to water the seeds. And when the people stood up, the birds would fly down and drink the tears ahe seeds. So children starved.
But one day, all these tired peasants—from all over a—they gathered in fields everywhere. They watched the birds eating and drinking. And they said, "Enough of this suffering and silence!" They began to clap their hands, and bang sticks on pots and pans and shout, "Sz! Sz! Sz!"—Die! Die! Die!
And all these birds rose in the air, alarmed and fused by this new anger, beating their black wings, flying just above, waiting for the o stop. But the peoples shouts only grew stronger, ahe birds became more exhausted, uo land, uo eat. And this tinued for many hours, for many days, until all those birds—hundreds, thousands, and then millions!—fluttered to the ground, dead and still, until not one bird remained in the sky.
What would your psychiatrist say if I told him that I shouted for joy when I read that this had happened?
Waiting Between the Trees
Ying-Ying St. Clair
My daughter has put me ii of rooms in her new house.
"This is the guest bedroom," Lena said in her proud Ameri way.
I smiled. But to ese ways of thinking, the guest bedroom is the best bedroom, where she and her husband sleep. I do not tell her this. Her wisdom is like a bottomless pond. You throw stones in and they sink into the darkness and dissolve. Her eyes looking back do not refleything.
I think this to myself even though I love my daughter. She and I have shared the same body. There is a part of her mind that is part of mine. But when she was born, she sprang from me like a slippery fish, and has been swimming away ever since. All her life, I have watched her as though from another shore. And now I must tell her everything about my past. It is the only way to pee her skin and pull her to where she be saved.
This room has ceilings that slope downward toward the pillow of my bed. Its walls close in like a coffin. I should remind my daughter not to put any babies in this room. But I know she will not listen. She has already said she does not want any babies. She and her husband are too busy drawing places that someone else will build and someone else will live in. I ot say the Ameri word that she and her husband are. It is an ugly word.
"Arty-tecky," I once pronou to my sister-in-law.
My daughter had laughed when she heard this. When she was a child, I should have slapped her more often for disrespect. But now it is too late. Now she and her husband give me moo add to my so-so security. So the burning feeling I have in my hand sometimes, I must pull it bato my heart and keep it inside.
What good does it do to draw fancy buildings and then live ihat is useless? My daughter has money, but everything in her house is for looking, not even food-looking. Look at this end table. It is heavy white marble on skinny black legs. A person must always think not to put a heavy bag on this table or it will break. The only thing that sit oable is a tall black vase. The vase is like a spider leg, so thin only one flower be put in. If you shake the table, the vase and flower will fall down.
All around this house I see the signs. My daughter looks but does not see. This is a house that will break into pieces. How do I know? I have always known a thing before it happens.
When I was a young girl in Wushi, I was lihai. Wild and stubborn. I wore a smirk on my face. Too good to listen. I was small and pretty. I had ti which made me very vain. If a pair of silk slippers became dusty, I threw them away. I wore costly imported calfskin shoes with little heels. I broke many pairs and ruined many stogs running across the cobblestone courtyard.
I often unraveled my hair and wore it loose. My mother would look at my wild tangles and se: "Aii-ya, Ying-ying, you are like the lady ghosts at the bottom of the lake."
These were the ladies who drowheir shame and floated in living peoples houses with their hair uo show their everlasting despair. My mother said I would bring shame into the house, but I only giggled as she tried to tuck my hair up with long pins. She loved me too much to get angry. I was like her. That was why she named me Ying-ying, Clear Refle.
We were one of the richest families in Wushi. We had many rooms, each filled with big, heavy tables. On each table was a jade jar sealed airtight with a jade lid. Each jar held unfiltered British cigarettes, always the right amount. Not too muot too little. The jars were made just for these cigarettes. I thought nothing of these jars. They were junk in my mind. Once my brothers and I stole a jar and poured the cigarettes out onto the streets. We ran down to a large hole that had opened up ireet, where underh water flowed. There we squatted along with the children who lived by the gutter. We scooped up cups of dirty water, hoping to find a fish or unknown treasure. We found nothing, and soon our clothes were washed over with mud and we were unreizable from the children who lived oreets.
We had many riches in that house. Silk rugs and jewels. Rare bowls and carved ivory. But when I think ba that house, and it is not often, I think of that jade jar, the muddied treasure I did not know I was holding in my hand.
There is ahing I remember clearly about that house.
I was sixteen. It was the night my you aunt got married. She and her new husband had already retired to the room they would share in the big house with her new mother-in-law and the rest of her new family.
Many of the visiting family members li our house, sitting around the big table in the main room, everybody laughing ais, peeling es, and laughing more. A man from aown was seated with us, a friend of my aunts new husband. He was older than my oldest brother, so I called him Uncle. His face was reddened from drinking whiskey.
"Ying-ying," he called hoarsely to me as he rose from his chair. "Maybe you are still hungry, isnt it so?"
I looked around the table, smiling at everyone because of this special attention given to me. I thought he would pull a special treat from a large sack he was reag into. I hoped for some sweetened cookies. But he pulled out a watermelon and put it oable with a loud pung.
"Kai gwa?"—Opeermelon—he said, poising a large knife over the perfect fruit.
Then he sank the knife in with a mighty push and his huge mouth roared a laugh so big I could see all the way back to his gold teeth. Everyo the table laughed loudly. My face burned from embarrassment, because at that time I did not uand.
Yes, it is true I was a wild girl, but I was i. I did not know what an evil thing he did whe open that watermelon. I did not uand until six months later when I was married to this man and he hissed drunkenly to me that he was ready to kai gwa.
This was a man so bad that even today I ot speak his name. Why did I marry this man? It was because the night after my you aunts wedding, I began to know a thing before it happened.
Most of the relatives had left the m. And by the evening, my half-sisters and I were bored. We were sitting at the same large table, drinking tea aing roasted watermelon seeds. My half-sisters gossiped loudly, while I sat crag seeds and laying their flesh in a pile.
My half-sisters were all dreaming of being married to worthless young boys from families not as good as ours. My half-sisters did not know how to reach very high food thing. They were the daughters of my fathers es. I was the daughter of my fathers wife.
"His mother will treat you like a servant…" chided one half-sister upon hearing the others choice.
"A madness on his uncles side…" retorted the other half-sister.
Wheired of teasing one ahey asked me whom I wao marry.
"I know of no one," I told them haughtily.
It was not that boys did not i me. I knew how to attract attention and be admired. But I was too vain to think any one boy was good enough for me.
Those were the thoughts in my head. But thoughts are of two kinds. Some are seeds that are planted when you are born, placed there by your father and mother and their aors before them. And some thoughts are planted by others. Maybe it was the watermelon seeds I was eating: I thought of that laughing man from the night before. And just then, a large wind blew in from the north and the flower oable split from its stem and fell at my feet.
This is the truth. It was as if a knife had cut the flowers head off as a sign. Right then, I knew I would marry this man. It was not with joy that I thought this, but wonderment that I could know it.
And soon I began to hear this maioned by my father and uncle and aunts new husband. At dinner his name ooned into my bowl along with my soup. I found him staring at me across from my uncles courtyard, hu-huing, "See, she ot turn away. She is already mine."
True enough, I did not turn away. I fought his eyes with mine. I listeo him with my nose held high, sniffing the stink of his words wheold me my father would not likely give the dowry he required. I pushed so hard to keep him from my thoughts that I fell into a marriage bed with him.
My daughter does not know that I was married to this man so long ago, twenty years before she was even born.
She does not know how beautiful I was when I married this man. I was far more pretty than my daughter, who has try feet and a large nose like her fathers.
Even today, my skin is still smooth, my figure like a girls. But there are deep lines in my mouth where I used to wear smiles. And my poor feet, onall and pretty! Now they are swollen, callused, and cracked at the heels. My eyes, sht and flashy at sixteen, are now yellow-stained, clouded.
But I still see almost everything clearly. When I want to remember, it is like looking into a bowl and finding the last grains of rice you did not finish.
There was an afternoon on Tai Lake soon after this man and I married. I remember this is when I came to love him. This man had turned my face toward the late-afternoon sun. He held my and stroked my cheek and said, "Ying-ying, you have tiger eyes. They gather fire in the day. At night they shine golden."
I did not laugh, even though this oem he said very badly. I cried with ho joy. I had a swimming feeling in my heart like a creature thrashing to get out and wanting to stay in at the same time. That is how much I came to love this man. This is how it is when a person joins your body and there is a part of your mind that swims to join that person against your will.
I became a strao myself. I retty for him. If I put slippers on my feet, it was to choose a pair that I knew would please him. I brushed my hair y-imes a night t luck to our marital bed, in hopes of ceiving a son.
The night he plahe baby, I again knew a thing before it happened. I k was a boy. I could see this little boy in my womb. He had my husbands eyes, large and wide apart. He had long tapered fingers, fat earlobes, and slick hair that rose high to reveal a large forehead.
It is because I had so much joy then that I came to have so much hate. But even when I was my happiest, I had a worry that started right above my brow, where you know a thing. This worry later trickled down to my heart, where you feel a thing and it bees true.
My husband started to take many busirips to the north. These trips began soon after we married, but they became longer after the baby ut in my womb. I remembered that the north wind had blown lud my husband my way, so at night when he was away, I opened wide my bedroom windows, even on cold nights, to blow his spirit a back my way.
What I did not know is that the north wind is the coldest. It pees the heart and takes the warmth away. The wind gathered such a force that it blew my husband past my bedroom and out the back door. I found out from my you aunt that he had left me to live with an opera singer.
Later still, when I overcame my grief and came to have nothing in my heart but loathing despair, my you aunt told me of others. Dancers and Ameri ladies. Prostitutes. A girl cousin younger even than I was. She left mysteriously for Hong Kong soon after my husband disappeared.
So I will tell Lena of my shame. That I was rid pretty. I was too good for any one man. That I became abandoned goods. I will tell her that at eighteen the prettiness drained from my cheeks. That I thought of throwing myself in the lake like the other ladies of shame. And I will tell her of the baby I killed because I came to hate this man so much.
I took this baby from my womb before it could be born. This was not a bad thing to do in a back then, to kill a baby before it is born. But even then, I thought it was bad, because my body flowed with terrible revenge as the juices of this mans firstborn son poured from me.
When the nurses asked what they should do with the lifeless baby, I hurled a neer at them and said to it like a fish and throw it in the lake. My daughter thinks I do not know what it means to not want a baby.
When my daughter looks at me, she sees a small old lady. That is because she sees only with her outside eyes. She has no chuming, no inside knowing of things. If she had chuming, she would see a tiger lady. And she would have careful fear.
I was born in the year of the Tiger. It was a very bad year to be born, a very good year to be a Tiger. That was the year a very bad spirit ehe world. People in the tryside died like chis on a hot summer day. People iy became shadows, went into their homes and disappeared. Babies were born and did not get fatter. The flesh fell off their bones in days and they died.
The bad spirit stayed in the world for four years. But I came from a spirit even stronger, and I lived. This is what my mother told me when I was old enough to know why I was so heartstrong in my ways.
Theold me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with ing, hiding its gold between trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to e. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad ma me.
I became like the ladies of the lake. I threw white clothes over the mirrors in my bedroom so I did not have to see my grief. I lost my strength, so I could not even lift my hands to place pins in my hair. And then I floated like a dead leaf oer until I drifted out of my mother-in-laws house and bay family home.
I went to the try outside of Shanghai to live with a sed cousins family. I stayed in this try home for ten years. If you ask me what I did during these long years, I only say I waited betweerees. I had one eye asleep, the other open and watg.
I did not work. My cousins family treated me well because I was the daughter of the family who supported them. The house was shabby, crowded with three families. It was not a fort to be there, and that is what I wanted. Babies crawled on the floor with the mice. Chis came in and out like my relatives graceless peasant guests. We all ate i amidst the h grease. And the flies! If you left a bowl with even a few grains of rice, you would find it covered with hungry flies so thick it looked like a living bowl of black bean soup. This is how poor the try was.
After ten years, I was ready. I was no lirl but a strange woman. A still-married woman with no husband. I went to the city with both eyes open. It was as if the bowl of black flies had been poured out onto the streets. Everywhere there were people moving, unknown men pushing against unknown women and no one g.
With the money from my family, I bought fresh clothes, modern straight suits. I y long hair in the mahat was stylish, like a young boy. I was so tired of doing nothing for so many years I decided to work. I became a shopgirl.
I did not o learn to flatter women. I khe words they wao hear. A tiger make a soft prrrn-prrn noise deep within its chest and make even rabbits feel safe and tent.
Even though I was a grown woman, I became pretty again. This was a gift. I wore clothes far better and more expehan what was sold iore. And this made women buy the cheap clothes, because they thought they could look as pretty as I.
It was at this shop, w like a peasant, that I met Clifford St. Clair. He was a large, pale Ameri man who bought the stores cheap-style clothes ahem overseas. It was his hat made me know I would marry him.
"Mistah Saint Clair," he said in English wheroduced himself to me.
And then he added in his thick, flat ese, "Like the angel of light."
I her liked him nor disliked him. I thought him her attractive nor unattractive. But this I knew. I knew he was the sign that the black side of me would soon go away.
Saint courted me for four years in his strange way. Even though I was not the owner of the shop, he always greeted me, shaking hands, holding them too long. From his palms water aloured, even after we married. He was and pleasant. But he smelled like a fner, a lamb-smell stink that ever be washed away.
I was not unkind. But he was kechi, too polite. He bought me cheap gifts: a glass figurine, a prickly brooch of cut glass, a silver-colored cigarette lighter. Saint acted as if these gifts were nothing, as if he were a rich maing a poor try girl to things we had never seen in a.
But I saw his look as he watched me open the boxes. Anxious and eager to please. He did not know that such things were nothing to me, that I was raised with riches he could not even imagine.
I always accepted these gifts graciously, alrotesting just enough, not too little, not too much. I did not ence him. But because I khis man would someday be my husband, I put these worthless tris carefully into a box, ing each with tissue. I khat someday he would ask to see them again.
Lena thinks Saint saved me from the poor try village that I said I was from. She is right. She is wrong. My daughter does not know that Saint had to atiently for four years like a dog in front of a butcher shop.
How is it that I finally came out a him marry me? I was waiting for the sign I knew would e. I had to wait until 1946.
A letter came from Tientsin, not from my family, who thought I was dead. It was from my you aunt. Even before I opehe letter I knew. My husband was dead. He had long since left his opera singer. He was with some worthless girl, a young servant. But she had a strong spirit and was reckless, more so than even he. Wheried to leave her, she had already sharpened her lo kit knife.
I thought this man had long ago drained everything from my heart. But now something strong and bitter flowed and made me feel another emptiness in a place I didnt know was there. I cursed this man alo藏书网ud so he could hear. You had dog eyes. You jumped and followed whoever called you. Now you chase your own tail.
So I decided. I decided to let Saint marry me. So easy for me. I was the daughter of my fathers wife. I spoke in a trembly voice. I became pale, ill, and more thin. I let myself bee a wounded animal. I let the hunter e to me and turo a tiger ghost. I willingly gave up my chi, the spirit that caused me so much pain.
Now I was a tiger that her pounor lay waitiweerees. I became an unseen spirit.
Saint took me to America, where I lived in houses smaller than the one in the try. I wore large Ameri clothes. I did servants tasks. I learhe Western ways. I tried to speak with a thick tongue. I raised a daughter, watg her from another shore. I accepted her Ameri ways.
With all these things, I did not care. I had no spirit.
I tell my daughter that I loved her father? This was a man who rubbed my feet at night. He praised the food that I cooked. He cried holy when I brought out the tris I had saved for the right day, the day he gave me my daughter, a tiger girl.
How could I not love this man? But it was the love of a ghost. Arms that encircled but did not touch. A bowl full of rice but without my appetite to eat it. No hunger. No fullness.
Now Saint is a ghost. He and I ow love equally. He knows the things I have been hiding all these years. Now I must tell my daughter everything. That she is the daughter of a ghost. She has no chi. This is my greatest shame. How I leave this world without leaving her my spirit?
So this is what I will do. I will gather together my past and look. I will see a thing that has already happehe pain that cut my spirit loose. I will hold that pain in my hand until it bees hard and shiny, more clear. And then my fieress e back, my golden side, my black side. I will use this sharp pain to pee my daughters tough skin and cut her tiger spirit loose. She will fight me, because this is the nature of two tigers. But I will win and give her my spirit, because this is the way a mother loves her daughter.
I hear my daughter speaking to her husband downstairs. They say words that mean nothing. They sit in a room with no life in it.
I know a thing before it happens. She will hear the vase and table crashing to the floor. She will e up the stairs and into my room. Her eyes will see nothing in the darkness, where I am waitiweerees.
Double face
Lindo Jong
My daughter wao go to a for her sed honeymoon, but now she is afraid.
"What if I blend in so well they think Im one of them?" Waverly asked me. "What if they do me e back to the Uates?"
"When you go to a," I told her, "you dont eveo open your mouth. They already know you are an outsider."
"What are you talking about?" she asked. My daughter likes to speak back. She likes to question what I say.
"Aii-ya," I said. "Even if you put on their clothes, even if you take off your makeup and hide your fancy jewelry, they know. They know just watg the way you walk, the way you carry your face. They know you do not belong."
My daughter did not look pleased when I told her this, that she didnt look ese. She had a sour Ameri look on her faaybe ten years ago, she would have clapped her hands—hurray!—as if this were good news. But now she wants to be ese, it is so fashionable. And I know it is too late. All those years I tried to teach her! She followed my ese ways only until she learned how to walk out the door by herself and go to school. So now the only ese words she say are sh-sh, houche, chr fan, and gwan deng shweijyau. How she talk to people in a with these words? Pee-pee, choo-choo trai, close light sleep. How she think she blend in? Only her skin and her hair are ese. Inside—she is all Ameri-made.
Its my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best bination: Ameri circumstances and ese character. How could I know these two things do not mix?
I taught her how Ameri circumstances work. If you are born poor here, its no lasting shame. You are first in line for a scholarship. If the roof crashes on your head, o cry over this bad luck. You sue anybody, make the landlord fix it. You do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business on your head. You buy an umbrella. o inside a Catholic church. In Ameriobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.
She learhese things, but I couldnt teach her about ese character. How to obey parents and listen to your mothers mind. How not to show your own thoughts, to put your feelings behind your face so you take advantage of hidden opportunities. Why easy things are not worth pursuing. How to know your own worth and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why ese thinking is best.
No, this kind of thinking didnt stick to her. She was too busy chewing gum, blowing bubbles bigger than her cheeks. Only that kind of thinking stuck.
"Finish your coffee," I told her yesterday. "Dont throw your blessings away."
"Dont be so old-fashioned, Ma," she told me, finishing her coffee down the sink. "Im my own person."
And I think, How she be her own person? When did I give her up?
My daughter is getting married a sed time. So she asked me to go to her beauty parlor, her famous Mr. Rory. I know her meaning. She is ashamed of my looks. What will her husbands parents and his important lawyer friends think of this backward old ese woman?
"Auntie An-mei cut me," I say.
"Rory is famous," says my daughter, as if she had no ears. "He does fabulous work."
So I sit in Mr. Rorys chair. He pumps me up and down until I am the right height. Then my daughter criticizes me as if I were not there. "See how its flat on one side," she accuses my head. "She needs a cut and a perm. And this purple tint in her hair, shes been doing it at home. Shes never had anything professionally done."
She is looking at Mr. Rory in the mirror. He is looking at me in the mirror. I have seen this professional look before. Ameris dont really look at one another when talking. They talk to their refles. They look at others or themselves only whehink nobody is watg. So they never see how they really look. They see themselves smiling without their mouth open, or turo the side where they ot see their faults.
"How does she want it?" asked Mr. Rory. He thinks I do not uand Engli.sh. He is floating his fihrough my hair. He is showing how his magi make my hair thicker and longer.
"Ma, how do you want it?" Why does my daughter think she is translating English for me? Before I even speak, she explains my thoughts: "She wants a soft wave. We probably shouldnt cut it too short. Otherwise itll be too tight for the wedding. She doesnt want it to look kinky or weird."
And now she says to me in a loud voice, as if I had lost my hearing, "Isnt that right, Ma? Not too tight?"
I smile. I use my Ameri face. Thats the face Ameris think is ese, the ohey ot uand. But inside I am being ashamed. I am ashamed she is ashamed. Because she is my daughter and I am proud of her, and I am her mother but she is not proud of me.
Mr. Rory pats my hair more. He looks at me. He looks at my daughter. Then he says something to my daughter that really displeases her: "Its uny how much you two look alike!"
I smile, this time with my ese face. But my daughters eyes and her smile bee very narrow, the way a cat pulls itself small just before it bites. Now Mr. Roes away so we think about this. I hear him snap his fingers, "Wash! Mrs. Jong is !"
So my daughter and I are alone in this crowded beauty parlor. She is frowning at herself in the mirror. She sees me looking at her.
"The same cheeks," she says, She points to mine and then pokes her cheeks. She sucks them outside in to look like a starved person. She puts her faext to mine, side by side, and we look at each other in the mirror.
"You see your character in your face," I say to my daughter without thinking. "You see your future."
"What do you mean?" she says.
And now I have to fight back my feelings. These two faces, I think, so much the same! The same happiness, the same sadness, the same good fortuhe same faults.
I am seeing myself and my mother, ba a, when I was a young girl.
My mother—yrandmother—oold me my fortune, how my character could lead to good and bad circumstances. She was sitting at her table with the big mirror. I was standing behind her, my resting on her shoulder. The day was the start of the new year. I would be ten years by my ese age, so it was an important birthday for me. For this reason maybe she did not criticize me too much. She was looking at my face.
She touched my ear. "You are lucky," she said. "You have my ears, a big thick lobe, lots of meat at the bottom, full of blessings. Some people are born so poor. Their ears are so thin, so close to their head, they ever hear luck calling to them. You have the right ears, but you must listen to your opportunities."
She rahin finger down my nose. "You have my he hole is not too big, so your money will not be running out. The nose is straight and smooth, a good sign. A girl with a crooked nose is bound for misfortune. She is always following the wrong things, the wrong people, the worst luck."
She tapped my and then hers. "Not too short, not too long. Our loy will be adequate, not cut off too soon, not so long we bee a burden."
She pushed my hair away from my forehead. "We are the same," cluded my mother. "Perhaps your forehead is wider, so you will be even more clever. And your hair is thick, the hairline is low on your forehead. This means you will have some hardships in your early life. This happeo me. But look at my hairline now. High! Such a blessing for my old age. Later you will learn to worry and lose your hair, too."
She took my in her hand. She turned my face toward her, eyes fag eyes. She moved my face to one side, theher. "The eyes are ho, eager," she said. "They follow me and show respect. They do not look down in shame. They do not resist and turn the opposite way. You will be a good wife, mother, and daughter-in-law."
When my mother told me these things, I was still so young. And even though she said we looked the same, I wao look more the same. If her eye went up and looked surprised, I wanted my eye to do the same. If her mouth fell down and was unhappy, I too wao feel unhappy.
I was so much like my mother. This was before our circumstances separated us: a flood that caused my family to leave me behind, my first marriage to a family that did not want me, a war from all sides, and later, ahat took me to a new try. She did not see how my face ged over the years. How my mouth began to droop. How I began to worry but still did not lose my hair. How my eyes began to follow the Ameri way. She did not see that I twisted my nose boung forward on a crowded bus in San Francisco. Your father and I, we were on our way to church to give many thanks to God for all our blessings, but I had to subtrae for my nose.
Its hard to keep your ese fa America. At the beginning, before I even arrived, I had to hide my true self. I paid an Ameri-raised ese girl in Peking to show me how.
"In America," she said, "you ot say you want to live there forever. If you are ese, you must say you admire their schools, their ways of thinking. You must say you want to be a scholar and e back to teach ese people what you have learned."
"What should I say I want to learn?" I asked. "If they ask me questions, if I ot answer…"
&quion, you must say you want to study religion," said this smart girl. "Ameris all have different ideas abion, so there are nht and wrong answers. Say to them, Im going fods sake, and they will respect you."
For another sum of mohis girl gave me a form filled out with English words. I had to copy these words over and ain as if they were English words formed from my own head. o the word NAME, I wrote Lindo Suo the word BIRTHDATE, I wrote May 11, 1918, which this girl insisted was the same as three months after the ese lunar new year. o the word BIRTHPLACE, I put down Taiyuan, a. Ao the word OCCUPATION, I wrote student of theology.
I gave the girl even more money for a list of addresses in San Francisco, people with big es. And finally, this girl gave me, free of charge, instrus for ging my circumstances. "First," she said, "you must find a husband. An Ameri citizen is best."
She saw my surprise and quickly added, "ese! Of course, he must be ese. Citizen does not mean Caucasian. But if he is not a citizen, you should immediately do wo. See here, you should have a baby. Birl, it doesnt matter in the Uates. her will take care of you in your old age, isnt that true?" Ah laughed.
"Be careful, though," she said. "The authorities there will ask you if you have children now or if you are thinking of having some. You must say no. You should look sincere and say you are not married, you are religious, you know it is wrong to have a baby."
I must have looked puzzled, because she explained further: "Look here now, how an unborn baby know what it is not supposed to do? And o has arrived, it is an Ameri citizen and do anything it wants. It ask its mother to stay. Isnt that true?"
But that is not the reason I uzzled. I wondered why she said I should look sincere. How could I look any other way when telling the truth?
See how truthful my face still looks. Why didnt I give this look to you? Why do you always tell your friends that I arrived in the Uates on a slow boat from a? This is not true. I was not that poor. I took a plane. I had saved the money my first husbands family gave me when they sent me away. And I had saved money from my twelve years work as a telephone operator. But it is true I did not take the fastest plahe plaook three weeks. It stopped everywhere: Hong Kong, Vietnam, the Philippines, Hawaii. So by the time I arrived, I did not look sincerely glad to be here.
Why do you always tell people that I met your father ihay House, that I broke open a fortune cookie and it said I would marry a dark, handsome stranger, and that when I looked up, there he was, the waiter, your father. Why do you make this joke? This is not sihis was not true! Your father was not a waiter, I e in that restaurant. The Cathay House had a sign that said "ese Food," so only Ameris went there before it was torn down. Now it is a Malds restaurant with a big ese sign that says mai dong lou—"wheat," "east," "building." All nonsense. Why are you attracted only to ese nonsense? You must uand my real circumstances, how I arrived, how I married, how I lost my ese face, why you are the way you are.
When I arrived, nobody asked me questions. The authorities looked at my papers and stamped me in. I decided to go first to a San Francisco address given to me by this girl in Peking. The bus put me down on a wide street with cable cars. This was California Street. I walked up this hill and then I saw a tall building. This was Old St. Marys. Uhe church sign, in handwritten ese characters, someone had added: "A ese Ceremony to Save Ghosts from Spiritual U 7 A.M. and 8:30 A.M." I memorized this information in case the authorities asked me where I worshipped my religion. And then I saw ann across the street. It ainted oside of a short building: "Save Today for Tomorrow, at Bank of America." And I thought to myself, This is where Ameri people worship. See, even then I was not so dumb! Today that church is the same size, but where that short bank used to be, now there is a tall building, fifty stories high, where you and your husband-to-be work and look down on everybody.
My daughter laughed when I said this. Her mother make a good joke.
So I kept walking up this hill. I saw two pagodas, one on each side of the street, as though they were the entrao a great Buddha temple. But when I looked carefully, I saw the pagoda was really just a building topped with stacks of tile roofs, no walls, nothing else us head. I was surprised how they tried to make everything look like an old imperial city or an emperors tomb. But if you looked oher side of these pretend-pagodas, you could see the streets became narrow and crowded, dark, and dirty. I thought to myself, Why did they choose only the worst ese parts for the inside? Why didnt they build gardens and ponds instead? Oh, here and there was the look of a famous a cave or a ese opera. But i was always the same cheap stuff.
So by the time I found the address the girl in Peking gave me, I knew not to expeuch. The address was a large green building, so noisy, children running up and dowside stairs and hallways. Inside number 402, I found an old woman who told me right away she had wasted her time waiting for me all week. She quickly wrote down some addresses and gave them to me, keeping her hand out after I took the paper. So I gave her an Ameri dollar and she looked at it and said, "Syaujye"—Miss—"we are in Ameriow. Even a beggar starve on this dollar." So I gave her another dollar and she said, "Aii, you think it is so easy getting this information?" So I gave her another and she closed her hand and her mouth.
With the addresses this old woman gave me, I found a cheap apartment on Washington Street. It was like all the other places, sitting on top of a little store. And through this three-dollar list, I found a terrible job paying me seventy-five ts an hour. Oh, I tried to get a job as a salesgirl, but you had to know English for that. I tried for another job as a ese hostess, but they also wanted me to rub my hands up and down fn men, and I knew right away this was as bad as fourth-class prostitutes in a! So I rubbed that address out with blak. And some of the other jobs required you to have a special relationship. They were jobs held by families from ton and Toishan and the Four Districts, southern people who had any years ago to make their fortune and were still holding onto them with the hands of their great-grandchildren.
So my mother was right about my hardships. This job in the cookie factory was one of the worst. Big black maes worked all day and night p little pancakes onto moving round griddles. The other women and I sat on high stools, and as the little pancakes went by, we had to grab them off the hot griddle just as they turned golden. We would put a strip of paper in the ter, then fold the cookie in half and bend its arms back just as it turned hard. If you grabbed the paoo soon, you would burn your fingers o, wet dough. But if you grabbed too late, the cookie would harden before you could even plete the first bend. And then you had to throw these mistakes in a barrel, which ted against you because the owner could sell those only as scraps.
After the first day, I suffered ten red fingers. This was not a job for a stupid person. You had to learn fast or your fingers would turn into fried sausages. So the day only my eyes burned, from aking them off the pancakes. And the day after that, my arms ached from holding them out ready to catch the pa just the right moment. But by the end of my first week, it became mindless work and I could relax enough to notice who else was w on each side of me. One was an older woman who never smiled and spoke to herself in tonese when she was angry. She talked like a crazy person. On my other side was a woman around my age. Her barrel tained very few mistakes. But I suspected she ate them. She was quite plump.
"Eh, Syaujye," she called to me over the loud noise of the maes. I was grateful to hear her voice, to discover we both spoke Mandarin, although her dialect was coarse-sounding. "Did you ever think you would be so powerful you could determine someone elses fortune?" she asked.
I didnt uand what she meant. So she picked up one of the strips of paper and read it aloud, first in English: "Do not fight and air your dirty laundry in public. To the victo the soils." Theranslated in ese: "You shouldnt fight and do your laundry at the same time. If you win, your clothes will get dirty."
I still did not know what she meant. So she picked up another one and read in English: "Money is the root of all evil. Look around you and dig deep." And then in ese: "Money is a bad influence. You bee restless and rob graves."
"What is this nonsense?" I asked her, putting the strips of paper in my pocket, thinking I should study these classical Ameri sayings.
"They are fortunes," she explained. "Ameri people think ese people write these sayings."
"But we never say such things!" I said. "These things dont make sehese are not fortuhey are bad instrus."
"No, Miss," she said, laughing, "it is our bad fortuo be here making these and somebody elses bad fortuo pay to get them."
So that is how I met An-mei Hsu. Yes, yes, Auntie An-mei, now so old-fashioned. An-mei and I still laugh over those bad fortunes and how they later became quite useful in helpich a husband.
"Eh, Lindo," An-mei said to me one day at our workplace. "e to my church this Sunday. My husband has a friend who is looking food ese wife. He is not a citizen, but Im sure he knows how to make one." So that is how I first heard about Tin Jong, your father. It was not like my first marriage, where everything was arranged. I had a choice. I could choose to marry your father, or I could choose not to marry him and go back to a.
I knew something was nht when I saw him: He was tonese! How could Ahink I could marry such a person? But she just said: "We are not in a anymore. You dont have to marry the village boy. Here everybody is now from the same village even if they e from different parts of a." See how ged Auntie An-mei is from those old days.
So we were shy at first, your father and I, her of us able to speak to each other in our ese dialects. We went to English class together, speaking to each other in those new words and sometimes taking out a piece of paper to write a ese character to show what we meant. At least we had that, a piece of paper to hold us together. But its hard to tell someones marriage iions when you t say things aloud. All those little signs—the teasing, the bossy, scolding words—thats how you know if it is serious. But we could talk only in the manner of lish teacher. I see cat. I see rat. I see hat.
But I saw soon enough how much your father liked me. He would pretend he was in a ese play to show me what he meant. He ran bad forth, jumped up and down, pulling his fihrough his hair, so I knew—mangjile!—what a busy, exg place this Pacific Telephone was, this place where he worked. You didnt know this about your father—that he could be such a good actor? You didnt know your father had so much hair?
Oh, I found out later his job was not the way he decribed it. It was not so good. Even today, now that I speak too your father, I always ask him why he doesnt find a better situation. But he acts as if we were in those old days, when he couldnt uand anything I said.
Sometimes I wonder why I wao catch a marriage with your father. I think An-mei put the thought in my mind. She said, "In the movies, boys and girls are alassing notes in class. Thats how they fall into trouble. You o start trouble to get this man to realize his iions. Otherwise, you will be an old lady before it es to his mind."
That evening An-mei and I went to work and searched through strips of fortune cookie papers, trying to find the right instrus to give to your father. An-mei read them aloud, putting aside ohat might work: "Diamonds are a girls best friend. Dont ever settle for a pal." "If such thoughts are in your head, its time to be wed." "fucius say a woman is worth a thousand words. Tell your wife shes used up her total."
We laughed over those. But I khe right one when I read it. It said: "A house is not home when a spouse is not at home." I did not laugh. I ed up this saying in a pancake, bending the cookie with all my heart.
After school the afternoon, I put my hand in my purse and then made a look, as if a mouse had bitten my hand. "Whats this?" I cried. Then I pulled out the cookie and ha to your father. "Eh! So many cookies, just to see them makes me sick. You take this cookie."
I knew even then he had a nature that did not waste anything. He opehe cookie and he ched it in his mouth, and thehe piece of paper.
"What does it say?" I asked. I tried to act as if it did not matter. And wheill did not speak, I said, "Translate, please."
We were walking in Portsmouth Square and already the fog had blown in and I was very cold in my thin coat. So I hoped your father would hurry and ask me to marry him. But instead, he kept his serious look and said, "I dont know this word spouse. Tonight I will look in my diary. Then I tell you the meaning tomorrow."
The day he asked me in English, "Lindo, you spouse me?" And I laughed at him and said he used that word incorrectly. So he came bad made a fucius joke, that if the words were wrong, then his iions must also be wrong. We scolded and joked with each other all day long like this, and that how we decided to get married.
One month later we had a ceremony in the First ese Baptist Church, where we met. And nine months later your father and I had our proof of citizenship, a baby boy, y brother Winston. I named him Winston because I liked the meaning of those two words "wins ton." I wao raise a son who would win many things, praise, money, a good life. Back then, I thought to myself, At last I have everything I wanted. I was so happy, I didnt see we were poor. I saw only what we had. How did I know Winston would die later in a car act? So young! Only sixteen!
Two years after Winston was born, I had your other brother, Vi. I named him Vi, which sounds like "wi," the sound of making money, because I was beginning to think we did not have enough. And then I bumped my nose riding on the bus. Soon after that you were born.
I dont know what caused me to ge. Maybe it was my crooked hat damaged my thinking. Maybe it was seeing you as a baby, how you looked so much like me, and this made me dissatisfied with my life. I wanted everything for you to be better. I wanted you to have the best circumstahe best character. I didnt want you tret anything. And thats why I named you Waverly. It was the name of the street we lived on. And I wanted you to think, This is where I belong. But I also knew if I named you after this street, soon you would grow up, leave this place, and take a piee with you.
Mr. Rory is brushing my hair. Everything is soft. Everything is black.
"You look great, Ma," says my daughter. "Everyo the wedding will think youre my sister."
I look at my fa the beauty parlor mirror. I see my refle. I ot see my faults, but I know they are there. I gave my daughter these faults. The same eyes, the same cheeks, the same . Her character, it came from my circumstances. I look at my daughter and now it is the first time I have seen it.
"Ai-ya! What happeo your nose?"
She looks in the mirror. She sees nothing wrong. "What do you mean? Nothing happened," she says. "Its just the same nose."
"But how did you get it crooked?" I ask. One side of her nose is bending lower, dragging her cheek with it.
"What do you mean?" she asks. "Its your nose. You gave me this nose."
"How that be? Its drooping. You must get plastic surgery and correct it."
But my daughter has no ears for my words. She puts her smiling faext to my worried one. "Dont be silly. Our nose isnt so bad," she says. "It makes us look devious." She looks pleased.
"What is this word, devious, " I ask.
"It means were looking one way, while following another. Were for one side and also the other. We mean what we say, but our iions are different."
"People see this in our face?"
My daughter laughs. "Well, not everything that were thinking. They just know were two-faced."
"This is good?"
"This is good if you get what you want."
I think about our two faces. I think about my iions. Whie is Ameri? Whie is ese? Whie is better? If you show one, you must always sacrifice the other.
It is like what happened when I went back to a last year, after I had not been there for almost forty years. I had taken off my fancy jewelry. I did not wear loud colors. I spoke their language. I used their local money. But still, they khey knew my face was not one hundred pert ese. They still charged me high fn prices.
So now I think, What did I lose? What did I get ba return? I will ask my daughter what she thinks.
Double face Up
A Pair of Tickets
Jing-Mei Woo
The minute our train leaves the Hong Kong border aers Shenzhen, a, I feel different. I feel the skin on my forehead tingling, my blood rushing through a new course, my bones ag with a familiar old pain. And I think, My mother was right. I am being ese.
"ot be helped," my mother said when I was fifteen and had vigorously dehat I had any ese whatsoever below my skin. I homore at Galileo High in San Francisco, and all my Caucasian friends agreed: I was about as ese as they were. But my mother had studied at a famous nursing school in Shanghai, and she said she knew all about geics. So there was no doubt in her mind, whether I agreed or not: Once you are born ese, you ot help but feel and think ese.
"Someday you will see," said my mother. "It is in your blood, waiting to be let go."
And when she said this, I saw myself transf like a werewolf, a mutant tag of DNA suddenly triggered, replig itself insidiously into a syndrome, a cluster of telltale ese behaviors, all those things my mother did to embarrass me—haggling with store owners, peg her mouth with a toothpi public, being color-blind to the fact that lemon yelloale pink are not good binations for winter clothes.
But today I realize Ive never really known what it means to be ese. I am thirty-six years old. My mother is dead and I am on a train, carrying with me her dreams of ing home. I am going to a.
We are first going to Guangzhou, my seventy-two-year-old father, ing Woo, and I, where we will visit his aunt, whom he has not seen since he was ten years old. And I dont know whether its the prospect of seeing his aunt or if its because hes ba a, but now he looks like hes a young boy, so i and happy I want to button his sweater and pat his head. We are sitting across from each other, separated by a little table with two cold cups of tea. For the first time I ever remember, my father has tears in his eyes, and all he is seeing out the train window is a seed field of yellow, green, and brown, a narrow al flanking the tracks, low rising hills, and three people in blue jackets riding an ox-driven cart on this early October m. And I t help myself. I also have misty eyes, as if I had seen this a long, long time ago, and had almost fotten.
Ihan three hours, we will be in Guangzhou, which my guidebook tells me is how one properly refers to ton these days. It seems all the cities I have heard of, except Shanghai, have ged their spellings. I think they are saying a has ged in other ways as well. gking is gqing. And Kweilin is Guilin. I have looked these names up, because after we see my fathers aunt in Guangzhou, we will catch a plao Shanghai, where I will meet my two half-sisters for the first time.
They are my mothers twin daughters from her first marriage, little babies she was forced to abandon on a road as she was fleeing Kweilin for gking in 1944. That was all my mother had told me about these daughters, so they had remained babies in my mind, all these years, sitting on the side of a road, listening to bombs whistling in the distance while sug their patiehumbs.
And it was only this year that someone found them and wrote with this joyful news. A letter came from Shanghai, addressed to my mother. When I first heard about this, that they were alive, I imagined my identical sisters transf from little babies into six-year-old girls. In my mind, they were seated o each other at a table, taking turns with the fountain pen. One would write a row of characters:Dearest Mama. We are alive. She would brush back her wispy bangs and hand the other sister the pen, and she would write:e get us. Please hurry.
Of course they could not know that my mother had died three months before, suddenly, when a blood vessel in her brain burst. One minute she was talking to my father, plaining about the tenants upstairs, scheming how to evict them uhe pretehat relatives from a were moving in. The minute she was holding her head, her eyes squeezed shut, groping for the sofa, and then crumpling softly to the floor with fluttering hands.
So my father had been the first oo opeter, a loer it turned out. And they did call her Mama. They said they always revered her as their true mother. They kept a framed picture of her. They told her about their life, from the time my mother last saw them on the road leaving Kweilin to when they were finally found.
And the letter had broken my fathers heart so much—these daughters calling my mother from another life he never khat he gave the letter to my mothers old friend Auntie Lindo and asked her to write bad tell my sisters, in the ge ossible, that my mother was dead.
But instead Auntie Lindo took the letter to the Joy Luck Club and discussed with Auntie Ying and Auntie An-mei what should be done, because they had known for many years about my mothers search for her twin daughters, her endless hope. Auntie Lindo and the others cried over this double tragedy, of losing my mother three months before, and now again. And so they couldnt help but think of some miracle, some possible way of reviving her from the dead, so my mother could fulfill her dream.
So this is what they wrote to my sisters in Shanghai: "Dearest Daughters, I too have never fotten you in my memory or in my heart. I never gave up hope that we would see each ain in a joyous reunion. I am only sorry it has been too long. I want to tell you everything about my life since I last saw you. I want to tell you this when our family es to see you in a…." They sig with my mothers name.
It wasnt until all this had been dohat they first told me about my sisters, the letter they received, the ohey wrote back.
"Theyll think shes ing, then," I murmured. And I had imagined my sisters now being ten or eleven, jumping up and down, holding hands, their pigtails boung, excited that their mother—their mother—was ing, whereas my mother was dead.
"How you say she is not ing in a letter?" said Auntie Lindo. "She is their mother. She is your mother. You must be the oo tell them. All these years, they have been dreaming of her." And I thought she was right.
But then I started dreaming, too, of my mother and my sisters and how it would be if I arrived in Shanghai. All these years, while they waited to be found, I had lived with my mother and then had lost her. I imagined seeing my sisters at the airport. They would be standing oiptoes, looking anxiously, sing from one dark head to another as we got off the plane. And I would reize them instantly, their faces with the identical worried look.
"Jyejye, Jyejye. Sister, Sister. We are here," I saw myself saying in my poor version of ese.
"Where is Mama?" they would say, and look around, still smiling, two flushed and eager faces. "Is she hiding?" And this would have been like my mother, to stand behind just a bit, to tease a little and make peoples patience pull a little on their hearts. I would shake my head and tell my sisters she was not hiding.
"Oh, that must be Mama, no?" one of my sisters would whisper excitedly, pointing to another small woman pletely engulfed in a tower of presents. And that, too, would have been like my mother, t mountains of gifts, food, and toys for children—all bought on sale—shunning thanks, saying the gifts were nothing, and later turning the labels over to show my sisters, "Calvin Klein, 100% wool."
I imagined myself starting to say, "Sisters, I am sorry, I have e alone…" and before I could tell them—they could see it in my face—they were wailing, pulling their hair, their lips twisted in pain, as they ran away from me. And then I saw myself getting ba the plane and ing home.
After I had dreamed this se many times—watg their despair turn from horror into anger—I begged Auntie Lindo to write another letter. And at first she refused.
"How I say she is dead? I ot write this," said Auntie Lindo with a stubborn look.
"But its cruel to have them believe shes ing on the plane," I said. "When they see its just me, theyll hate me."
"Hate you? ot be." She was scowling. "You are their own sister, their only family."
"You dont uand," I protested.
"What I dont uand?" she said.
And I whispered, "Theyll think Im responsible, that she died because I didnt appreciate her."
And Auntie Lindo looked satisfied and sad at the same time, as if this were true and I had finally realized it. She sat down for an hour, and wheood up she handed me a two-page letter. She had tears in her eyes. I realized that the very thing I had feared, she had done. So even if she had written the news of my mothers death in English, I wouldnt have had the heart to read it.
"Thank you," I whispered.
The landscape has bee gray, filled with low flat t buildings, old factories, and then tracks and more tracks filled with trains like ours passing by in the opposite dire. I see platforms crowded with people wearing drab Western clothes, with spots ht colors: little children wearing pink and yellow, red and peach. And there are soldiers in olive green and red, and old ladies in gray tops and pants that stop mid-calf. We are in Guangzhou.
Before the train even es to a stop, people are bringing down their belongings from above their seats. For a moment there is a dangerous shower of heavy suitcases laden with gifts to relatives, half-broken boxes ed in miles of string to keep the tents from spilling out, plastic bags filled with yarn aables and packages of dried mushrooms, and camera cases. And then we are caught in a stream of people rushing, shoving, pushing us along, until we find ourselves in one of a dozen lines waiting to gh s. I feel as if I were getting on the number 30 Sto bus in San Francisco. I am in a, I remind myself. And somehow the crowds dont bother me. It feels right. I start pushing too.
I take out the declaration forms and my passport. "Woo," it says at the top, and below that, "June May," who was born in "California, U.S.A.," in 1951. I wonder if the s people will questioher Im the same person as in the passport photo. In this picture, my -length hair is swept bad artfully styled. I am wearing false eyelashes, eye shadow, and lip liner. My cheeks are hollowed out by bronze blusher. But I had not expected the heat in October. And now my hair hangs limp with the humidity. I wear no makeup; in Hong Kong my mascara had melted into dark circles and everything else had felt like layers of grease. So today my face is plain, unadorned except for a thin mist of shiny sweat on my forehead and nose.
Even without makeup, I could never pass for true ese. I stand five-foot-six, and my head pokes above the crowd so that I am eye level only with other tourists. My mother oold me my height came from my grandfather, who was a northerner, and may have even had some Mongol blood. "This is what yrandmother oold me," explained my mother. "But now it is too late to ask her. They are all dead, yrandparents, your uncles, and their wives and children, all killed in the war, when a bomb fell on our house. So many geions in one instant."
She had said this so matter-of-factly that I thought she had long siten over any grief she had. And then I wondered how she khey were all dead.
"Maybe they left the house before the bomb fell," I suggested.
"No," said my mother. "Our whole family is go is just you and I."
"But how do you know? Some of them could have escaped."
"ot be," said my mother, this time almost angrily. And then her froashed over by a puzzled blank look, and she began to talk as if she were trying to remember where she had misplaced something. "I went back to that house. I kept looking up to where the house used to be. And it wasnt a house, just the sky. And below, underh my feet, were four stories of burnt bricks and wood, all the life of our house. Then off to the side I saw things blown into the yard, nothing valuable. There was a bed someone used to sleep in, really just a metal frame twisted up at one er. And a book, I dont know what kind, because every page had turned black. And I saw a teacup which was unbroken but filled with ashes. And then I found my doll, with her hands and legs broken, her hair burned off….When I was a little girl, I had cried for that doll, seeing it all alone iore window, and my mother had bought it for me. It was an Ameri doll with yellow hair. It could turn its legs and arms. The eyes moved up and down. And when I married a my family home, I gave the doll to my you niece, because she was like me. She cried if that doll was not with her always. Do you see? If she was in the house with that doll, her parents were there, and so everybody was there, waiting together, because thats how our family was."
The woman in the s booth stares at my dots, then gla me briefly, and with two quients stamps everything and sternly nods me along. And soon my father and I find ourselves in a large area filled with thousands of people and suitcases. I feel lost and my father looks helpless.
"Excuse me," I say to a man who looks like an Ameri. " you tell me where I get a taxi?" He mumbles something that sounds Swedish or Dutch.
"Syau Yen! Syau Yen!" I hear a pierg voice shout from behind me. An old woman in a yellow knit beret is holding up a pink plastic bag filled with ed tris. I guess she is trying to sell us something. But my father is staring down at this tiny sparrow of a woman, squinting into her eyes. And then his eyes widen, his face opens up and he smiles like a pleased little boy.
"Aiyi! Aiyi!"—Auntie Auntie!—he says softly.
"Syau Yen!" y great-aunt. I think its funny she has just called my father "Little Wild Goose." It must be his baby milk he name used to disce ghosts from stealing children.
They clasp each others hands—they do not hug—and hold on like this, taking turns saying, "Look at you! You are so old. Look how old youve bee!" They are both g openly, laughing at the same time, and I bite my lip, trying not to cry. Im afraid to feel their joy. Because I am thinking how different our arrival in Shanghai will be tomorrow, hoard it will feel.
Now Aiyi beams and points to a Polaroid picture of my father. My father had wisely sent pictures when he wrote and said we were ing. See how smart she was, she seems to intone as she pares the picture to my father. Iter, my father had said we would call her from the hotel once we arrived, so this is a surprise, that theyve e to meet us. I wonder if my sisters will be at the airport.
It is only then that I remember the camera. I had meant to take a picture of my father and his aunt the moment they met. Its not too late.
"Here, stand together over here," I say, holding up the Polaroid. The camera flashes and I hand them the snapshot. Aiyi and my father still stand close together, each of them holding a er of the picture, watg as their images begin to form. They are almost reverentially quiet. Aiyi is only five years older than my father, which makes her arouy-seven. But she looks a, shrunken, a mummified relic. Her thin hair is pure white, her teeth are brown with decay. So much for stories of ese women looking young forever, I think to myself.
Now Aiyi is ing to me: "Jandale." So big already. She looks up at me, at my full height, and then peers into her pink plastic bag—her gifts to us, I have figured out—as if she is w what she will give to me, now that I am so old and big. And then she grabs my elbow with her sharp pincerlike grasp and turns me around. A man and woman in their fifties are shaking hands with my father, everybody smiling and saying, "Ah! Ah!" They are Aiyis oldest son and his wife, and standio them are four other people, around my age, and a little girl whos arouhe introdus go by so fast, all I know is that one of them is Aiyis grandson, with his wife, and the other is her granddaughter, with her husband. And the little girl is Lili, Aiyis great-granddaughter.
Aiyi and my father speak the Mandarin dialect from their childhood, but the rest of the family speaks only the tonese of their village. I uand only Mandarin but t speak it that well. So Aiyi and my father gossip urained in Mandarin, exging news about people from their old village. And they stop only occasionally to talk to the rest of us, sometimes in tonese, sometimes in English.
"Oh, it is as I suspected," says my father, turning to me. "He died last summer." And I already uood this. I just dont know who this person, Li Gong, is. I feel as if I were in the United Nations and the translators had run amok.
"Hello," I say to the little girl. "My name is Jing-mei." But the little girl squirms to look away, causing her parents to laugh with embarrassment. I try to think of tonese words I say to her, stuff I learned from friends in atown, but all I think of are swear words, terms for bodily funs, and short phrases like "tastes good," "tastes like garbage," and "shes really ugly." And then I have another plan: I hold up the Polaroid camera, being Lili with my finger. She immediately jumps forward, places one hand on her hip in the manner of a fashion model, juts out her chest, and flashes me a toothy smile. As soon as I take the picture she is standio me, jumping and giggling every few seds as she watches herself appear on the greenish film.
By the time we hail taxis for the ride to the hotel, Lili is holding tight onto my hand, pulling me along.
Iaxi, Aiyi talks nonstop, so I have no ce to ask her about the different sights assing by.
"You wrote and said you would e only for one day," says Aiyi to my father in an agitated tone. "One day! How you see your family in one day! Toishan is many hours drive from Guangzhou. And this idea to call us when you arrive. This is nonsense. We have no telephone."
My heart races a little. I wonder if Auntie Lindo told my sisters we would call from the hotel in Shanghai?
Aiyi tio sy father. "I was so beside myself, ask my son, almost turned heaven ah upside down trying to think of a way! So we decided the best was for us to take the bus from Toishan and e into Guangzhou—meet yht from the start."
And now I am holding my breath as the taxi driver dodges between trucks and buses, honking his horn stantly. We seem to be on some sort of long freeway overpass, like a bridge above the city. I see row after row of apartments, each floor cluttered with laundry hanging out to dry on the baly. We pass a public bus, with people jammed in so tight their faces are nearly wedged against the window. Then I see the skyline of what must be downtown Guangzhou. From a dista looks like a major Ameri city, with highrises and stru going on everywhere. As we slow down in the more gested part of the city, I see scores of little shops, dark inside, lined with ters and shelves. And then there is a building, its front laced with scaffolding made of bamboo poles held together with plastic strips. Men and womeanding on narrow platforms, scraping the sides, w without safety straps or helmets. Oh, would OSHA have a field day here, I think.
Aiyis shrill voice rises up again: "So it is a shame you t see our village, our house. My sons have been quite successful, selling etables in the free market. We had enough these last few years to build a big house, three stories, all of new brick, big enough for our whole family and then some. And every year, the money is eveer. You Ameris arent the only ones who know how to get rich!"
The taxi stops and I assume weve arrived, but then I peer out at what looks like a grander version of the Hyatt Regency. "This is unist a?" I wonder out loud. And then I shake my head toward my father. "This must be the wrong hotel." I quickly pull out our itinerary, travel tickets, and reservations. I had explicitly instructed my travel agent to choose something inexpensive, ihirty-to-forty-dollar range. Im sure of this. And there it says on our itinerary: Garden Hotel, Huanshi Dong Lu. Well, our travel agent had better be prepared to eat the extra, thats all I have to say.
The hotel is magnifit. A bellboy plete with uniform and sharp-creased cap jumps forward and begins to carry s into the lobby. Ihe hotel looks like an y of shopping arcades aaurants all encased in granite and glass. And rather than be impressed, I am worried about the expense, as well as the appeara must give Aiyi, that we rich Ameris ot be without our luxuries even for one night.
But when I step up to the reservation desk, ready to haggle over this booking mistake, it is firmed. Our rooms are prepaid, thirty-four dollars each. I feel sheepish, and Aiyi and the others seem delighted by our temporary surroundings. Lili is looking wide-eyed at an arcade filled with video games.
Our whole family crowds into one elevator, and the bellboy waves, saying he will meet us on the eighteenth floor. As soon as the elevator door shuts, everybody bees very quiet, and when the door finally opens again, everybody talks at on what sounds like relieved voices. I have the feeling Aiyi and the others have never been on such a long elevator ride.
Our rooms are o each other and are identical. The rugs, drapes, bedspreads are all in shades of taupe. Theres a color television with remote-trol panels built into the lamp table betweewo twin beds. The bathroom has marble walls and floors. I find a built-i bar with a small refrigerator stocked with Heineken beer, Coke Classid Seven-Up, mini-bottles of Johnnie Walker Red, Bacardi rum, and Smirnoff vodka, and packets of M & Ms, honey-roasted cashews, and Cadbury chocolate bars. And again I say out loud, "This is unist a?"
My father es into my room. "They decided we should just stay here and visit," he says, shrugging his shoulders. "They say, Less trouble that way. More time to talk."
"What about dinner?" I ask. I have been envisioning my first real ese feast for many days already, a big ba with one of those soups steaming out of a carved winter melon, chi ed in clay, Peking duck, the works.
My father walks over and picks up a room service book o a Travel & Leisure magazine. He flips through the pages quickly and then points to the menu. "This is what they want," says my father.
So its decided. We are going to dionight in our rooms, with our family, sharing hamburgers, french fries, and apple pie ?la mode.
Aiyi and her family are browsing the shops while we up. After a hot ride orain, Im eager for a shower and cooler clothes.
The hotel has provided little packets of shampoo which, upon opening, I discover is the sistend color of hoisin sauce. This is more like it, I think. This is a. And I rub some in my damp hair.
Standing in the shower, I realize this is the first time Ive been by myself in what seems like days. But instead of feeling relieved, I feel forlorn. I think about what my mother said, about activating my genes and being ese. And I wonder what she meant.
Right after my mother died, I asked myself a lot of things, things that couldnt be answered, to force myself to grieve more. It seemed as if I wao sustain my grief, to assure myself that I had cared deeply enough.
But now I ask the questions mostly because I want to know the answers. What was that pork stuff she used to make that had the texture of sawdust? What were the names of the uncles who died in Shanghai? What had she dreamt all these years about her other daughters? All the times whe mad at me, was she really thinking about them? Did she wish I were they? Did she regret that I wasnt?
At one oclo the m, I awake to tapping sounds on the window. I must have dozed off and now I feel my body uncramping itself. Im sitting on the floor, leaning against one of the twin beds. Lili is lyio me. The others are asleep, too, sprawled out on the beds and floor. Aiyi is seated at a little table, looking very sleepy. And my father is staring out the windoing his fingers on the glass. The last time I listened my father was telling Aiyi about his life since he last saw her. How he had goo Yeng Uy, later got a post with a neer in gking, met my mother there, a young widow. How they later fled together to Shanghai to try to find my mothers family house, but there was nothing there. And theraveled eventually to ton and then to Hong Kong, then Haiphong and finally to San Francisco….
"Suyuan didnt tell me she was trying all these years to find her daughters," he is now saying in a quiet voice. "Naturally, I did not discuss her daughters with her. I thought she was ashamed she had left them behind."
"Where did she leave them?" asks Aiyi. "How were they found?"
I am wide awake now. Although I have heard parts of this story from my mothers friends.
"It happened when the Japaook over Kweilin," says my father.
"Japanese in Kweilin?" says Aiyi. "That was he case. Couldhe Japanese never came to Kweilin."
"Yes, that is what the neers reported. I know this because I was w for the news bureau at the time. The Kuomintang often told us what we could say and could not say. But we khe Japanese had e into Kwangsi Province. We had sources who told us how they had captured the Wug-ton railway. How they were ing overland, making very fast progress, marg toward the provincial capital."
Aiyi looks astonished. "If people did not know this, how could Suyuan know the Japanese were ing?"
"An officer of the Kuomintaly warned her," explains my father. "Suyuans husband also was an officer and everybody khat officers and their families would be the first to be killed. So she gathered a few possessions and, in the middle of the night, she picked up her daughters and fled on foot. The babies were not even one year old."
"How could she give up those babies!" sighs Aiyi. "Twin girls. We have never had such lu our family." And then she yawns again.
"What were they named?" she asks. I listen carefully. I had been planning on using just the familiar "Sister" to address them both. But now I want to know how to pronouheir names.
"They have their fathers surname, Wang," says my father. "And their given names are Yu and Hwa."
"What do the names mean?" I ask.
"Ah." My father draws imaginary characters on the window. "One means Spring Rain, the other Spring Flower, " he explains in English, "because they born in the spring, and of course rain e before flower, same order these girls are born. Your mother like a poet, dont you think?"
I nod my head. I see Aiyi nod her head forward, too. But it falls forward and stays there. She is breathing deeply, noisily. She is asleep.
"And what does Mas name mean?" I whisper.
" Suyuan, " he says, writing more invisible characters on the glass. "The way she write it in ese, it mean Long-Cherished Wish. Quite a faname, not so ordinary like flower name. See this first character, it mean something like Forever Never Fotten. But there is another way to write Suyuan. Souly the same, but the meaning is opposite." His finger creates the brushstrokes of another character. "The first part look the same: Never Fotten. But the last part add to first part make the whole word mean Long-Held Grudge. Your met angry with me, I tell her her name should be Grudge."
My father is looking at me, moist-eyed. "See, I pretty clever, too, hah?"
I nod, wishing I could find some way to fort him. "And what about my name," I ask, "what does Jing-mei mean?"
"Your name also special," he says. I wonder if any name in ese is not something special. "Jing like excellent jing. Not just good, its something pure, essential, the best quality. Jing is good leftover stuff when you take impurities out of something like gold, or rice, or salt. So what is left—just pure essence. Ahis is ei, as in meimei, younger sister. "
I think about this. My mothers long-cherished wish. Me, the younger sister who was supposed to be the essence of the others. I feed myself with the old grief, w how disappointed my mother must have been. Tiny Aiyi stirs suddenly, her head rolls and then falls back, her mouth opens as if to answer my question. She grunts in her sleep, tug her body more closely into the chair.
"So why did she abandon those babies on the road?" I o know, because now I feel abaoo.
"Long time I wohis myself," says my father. "But then I read that letter from her daughters in Shanghai now, and I talk to Auntie Lindo, all the others. And then I knew. No shame in what she done. None."
"What happened?"
"Your mother running away—" begins my father.
"No, tell me in ese," I interrupt. "Really, I uand."
He begins to talk, still standing at the window, looking into the night.
After fleeing Kweilin, your mother walked for several days trying to find a main road. Her thought was to catch a ride on a truck on, to catough rides until she reached gking, where her husband was stationed.
She had sewn money and jewelry into the lining of her dress, enough, she thought, to barter rides all the way. If I am lucky, she thought, I will not have to trade the heavy gold bracelet and jade ring. These were things from her mother, yrandmother.
By the third day, she had traded nothing. The roads were filled with people, everybody running and begging for rides from passing trucks. The trucks rushed by, afraid to stop. So your mother found no rides, only the start of dysentery pains iomach.
Her shoulders ached from the two babies swinging from scarf slings. Blisters grew on her palms from holding two leather suitcases. And then the blisters burst and began to bleed. After a while, she left the suitcases behind, keeping only the food and a few clothes. And later she also dropped the bags of wheat flour and rid kept walking like this for many miles, singing songs to her little girls, until she was delirious with pain and fever.
Finally, there was not one more step left in her body. She didnt have the strength to carry those babies any farther. She slumped to the ground. She knew she would die of her siess, or perhaps from thirst, from starvation, or from the Japanese, who she was sure were marg right behind her.
She took the babies out of the slings and sat them on the side of the road, then lay dowo them. You babies are so good, she said, so quiet. They smiled back, reag their chubby hands for her, wanting to be picked up again. And then she knew she could not bear to watch her babies die with her.
She saw a family with three young children in a cart going by. "Take my babies, I beg you," she cried to them. But they stared back with empty eyes and opped.
She saw another person pass and called out again. This time a man turned around, and he had such a terrible expression—your mother said it looked like death itself—she shivered and looked away.
When the road grew quiet, she tore open the lining of her dress, and stuffed jewelry uhe shirt of one baby and money uhe other. She reached into her pocket and drew out the photos of her family, the picture of her father and mother, the picture of herself and her husband on their wedding day. And she wrote on the back of each the names of the babies and this same message: "Please care for these babies with the money and valuables provided. When it is safe to e, if y them to Shanghai, 9 Weig Lu, the Li family will be glad to give you a generous reward. Li Suyuan and Wang Fuchi."
And theouched each babys cheek and told her not to cry. She would go down the road to find them some food and would be back. And without looking back, she walked down the road, stumbling and g, thinking only of this one last hope, that her daughters would be found by a kied person who would care for them. She would not allow herself to imagine anything else.
She did not remember how far she walked, which dire she went, when she fainted, or how she was found. When she awoke, she was in the back of a boung truck with several other sick people, all moaning. And she began to scream, thinking she was now on a jouro Buddhist hell. But the fact of an Ameri missionary lady bent over her and smiled, talking to her in a soothing language she did not uand. A she could somehow uand. She had been saved for no good reason, and it was now too late to go bad save her babies.
When she arrived in gking, she learned her husband had died two weeks before. She told me later she laughed when the officers told her this news, she was so delirious with madness and disease. To e so far, to lose so mud to find nothing.
I met her in a hospital. She was lying on a cot, hardly able to move, her dysentery had drained her so thin. I had e in for my foot, my missing toe, which was cut off by a piece of falling rubble. She was talking to herself, mumbling.
"Look at these clothes," she said, and I saw she had on a rather unusual dress for wartime. It was silk satin, quite dirty, but there was no doubt it was a beautiful dress.
"Look at this face," she said, and I saw her dusty fad hollow cheeks, her eyes shining back. "Do you see my foolish hope?"
"I thought I had lost everything, except these two things," she murmured. "And I wondered which I would lose . Clothes or hope? Hope or clothes?"
"But now, see here, look what is happening," she said, laughing, as if all her prayers had been answered. And she ulling hair out of her head as easily as one lifts new wheat from wet soil.
It was an old peasant woman who found them. "How could I resist?" the peasant woman later told your sisters when they were older. They were still sitting obediently near where your mother had left them, looking like little fairy queens waiting for their sedan to arrive.
The woman, Mei g, and her husband, Mei Han, lived in a stone cave. There were thousands of hidden caves like that in and around Kweilin so secret that the people remained hidden even after the war ehe Meis would e out of their cave every few days and fe for food supplies left on the road, and sometimes they would see something that they both agreed was a tragedy to leave behind. So one day they took back to their cave a delicately painted set of rice bowls, another day a little footstool with a velvet cushion and two new wedding blas. And o was your sisters.
They were pious people, Muslims, who believe..d the twin babies were a sign of double luck, and they were sure of this when, later in the evening, they discovered how valuable the babies were. She and her husband had never seen rings and bracelets like those. And while they admired the pictures, knowing the babies came from a good family, her of them could read or write. It was not until many months later that Mei g found someone who could read the writing on the back. By then, she loved these baby girls like her own.
In 1952 Mei Han, the husband, died. The twins were already eight years old, and Mei g now decided it was time to find your sisters true family.
She showed the girls the picture of their mother and told them they had been born into a great family and she would take them back to see their true mother and grandparents. Mei g told them about the reward, but she swore she would refuse it. She loved these girls so much, she only wahem to have what they were entitled to—a better life, a fine house, educated ways. Maybe the family would let her stay on as the girls amah. Yes, she was certain they would insist.
Of course, when she found the place at 9 Weig Lu, in the old French cession, it was something pletely different. It was the site of a factory building, retly structed, and none of the workers knew what had bee of the family whose house had burned down on that spot.
Mei g could not have known, of course, that your mother and I, her new husband, had already returo that same pla 1945 in hopes of finding both her family and her daughters.
Your mother and I stayed in a until 1947. We went to many different cities—back t?o Kweilin, to gsha, as far south as Kunming. She was always looking out of one er of her eye for twin babies, then little girls. Later we went to Hong Kong, and when we finally left in 1949 for the Uates, I think she was even looking for them on the boat. But when we arrived, she no loalked about them. I thought, At last, they have died in her heart.
Wheers could be openly exged between a and the Uates, she wrote immediately to old friends in Shanghai and Kweilin. I did not know she did this. Auntie Lindo told me. But of course, by then, all the street names had ged. Some people had died, others had moved away. So it took many years to find a tact. And when she did find an old sates address and wrote askio look for her daughters, her friend wrote bad said this was impossible, like looking for a needle otom of the o. How did she know her daughters were in Shanghai and not somewhere else in a? The friend, of course, did not ask, How do you know your daughters are still alive?
So her sate did not look. Finding babies lost during the war was a matter of foolish imagination, and she had no time for that.
But every year, your mother wrote to different people. And this last year, I think she got a big idea in her head, to go to a and find them herself. I remember she told me, "ing, we should go, before it is too late, before we are too old." And I told her we were already too old, it was already too late.
I just thought she wao be a tourist! I didnt know she wao go and look for her daughters. So when I said it was too late, that must have put a terrible thought in her head that her daughters might be dead. And I think this possibility grew bigger and bigger in her head, until it killed her.
Maybe it was your mothers dead spirit who guided her Shanghai sate to find her daughters. Because after your mother died, the sate saw your sisters, by ce, while shopping for shoes at the Number Oment Store on Nanjing Dong Road. She said it was like a dream, seeing these two women who looked so much alike, moving dowairs together. There was something about their facial expressions that remihe sate of your mother.
She quickly walked over to them and called their names, which of course, they did n first, because Mei g had ged their names. But your mothers friend was so sure, she persisted. "Are you not Wang Yu and Wang Hwa?" she asked them. And then these double-image women became very excited, because they remembered the names written on the back of an old photo, a photo of a young man and womaill honored, as their much-loved first parents, who had died and bee spirit ghosts still roaming the earth looking for them.
At the airport, I am exhausted. I could not sleep last night. Aiyi had followed me into my room at three in the m, and she instantly fell asleep on one of the twin beds, sn with the might of a lumberjack. I lay awake thinking about my mothers story, realizing how much I have never known about her, grieving that my sisters and I had both lost her.
And now at the airport, after shaking hands with everybody, waving good-bye, I think about all the different ways we leave people in this world. Cheerily waving good-bye to some at airports, knowing well never see each ain. Leaving others on the side of the road, hoping that we will. Finding my mother in my fathers story and saying good-bye before I have a ce to know her better.
Aiyi smiles at me as we wait for ate to be called. She is so old. I put one arm around her and one arm around Lili. They are the same size, it seems. And then its time. As we wave good-bye one more time aer the waiting area, I get the sense I am going from one funeral to another. In my hand Im clutg a pair of tickets to Shanghai. In two hours well be there.
The plaakes off. I y eyes. How I describe to them in my broken ese about our mothers life? Where should I begin?
"Wake up, were here," says my father. And I awake with my heart pounding in my throat. I look out the window and were already on the runway. Its gray outside.
And now Im walking doweps of the plane, onto the tarmad toward the building. If only, I think, if only my mother had lived long enough to be the one walking toward them. I am so nervous I ot even feel my feet. I am just moving somehow.
Somebody shouts, "Shes arrived!" And then I see her. Her short hair. Her small body. And that same look on her face. She has the back of her hand pressed hard against her mouth. She is g as though she had gohrough a terrible ordeal and were happy it is over.
And I know its not my mother, yet it is the same look she had when I was five and had disappeared all afternoon, for such a long time, that she was vinced I was dead. And when I miraculously appeared, sleepy-eyed, crawling from underh my bed, she wept and laughed, biting the back of her hand to make sure it was true.
And now I see her again, two of her, waving, and in one hand there is a photo, the Polaroid I sent them. As soon as I get beyond the gate, we run toward each other, all three of us embrag, all hesitations and expectations fotten.
"Mama, Mama," we all murmur, as if she is among us.
My sisters look at me, proudly. "Meimei jandale," says one sister proudly to the other. "Little Sister has grown up." I look at their faces again and I see no tray mother in them. Yet they still look familiar. And now I also see art of me is ese. It is so obvious. It is my family. It is in our blood. After all these years, it finally be let go.
My sisters and I stand, arms around each other, laughing and wiping the tears from each others eyes. The flash of the Polaroid goes off and my father hands me the snapshot. My sisters and I watch quietly together, eager to see what develops.
The gray-green surface ges to the bright colors of our three images, sharpening and deepening all at once. And although we dont speak, I know we all see it: Together we look like our mother. Her same eyes, her same mouth, open in surprise to see, at last, her long-cherished wish.天涯在线书库《www.tianyabook.com》